Spice Mix Precure!
by thedollyloli
Summary: Malini lived a sheltered life up until she was sent to Earth to help with a deadly trans-dimensional conflict. Even then, she'd have never guessed fate would give her magical powers and put her on the front lines. Together with her new teammates, she must learn to become both a hero and a good friend.
1. Mission in Another World

Chapter 1: Mission in a Parallel World

Malini had never seen a suitcase stuffed so full in her life. Or, well, she hadn't been able to travel at all in her short life, so she hadn't seen much in the way of suitcases, period. But this had to be the most stuffed that one could get, seeing as she could barely close it. Why did she have to pack so much, anyway? Was she really going to be away for that long?

As if to answer, her little fairy friend used her leafy ears to float down and sit on the bed by her side, carrying a sheet of paper in her hand that was twice her height. At least Laurier was coming with her. If she had to leave her best friend behind… She couldn't bear the thought. Malini took the paper from her hands. "Better make sure we got everything. Uh…hairbrush?"

It took a while for Laurier to dig through the massive pile of luggage, but after a minute she did come across it. "Check!" she shouted, buried beneath clothing.

Oh, good. For a second, she was worried she could have got stuck in there. "Shampoo?"

"Check!"

"Soap?"

"Check!"

"Toothbrush, toothpaste?"

"Check, check!"

"Extra glasses?" Laurier's head popped out from the heap, attempting to wear a pair of glasses at least three times her size. Malini couldn't help giggling. "Check."

Just as she was about to proceed with the rest of the checklist, a voice from the other end of the hallway caught her attention. "Atsuko…" And she didn't sound happy. She knew she must've been a great captain of the guard; besides her fighting skill, she never hesitated to stand up for herself, or for other people. Another voice answered. Was that the queen? The queen was here?!

Becoming absorbed in their conversation, she didn't even notice Laurier perch on her shoulder. "Malini? What's wrong?"

Her expression fell. They were arguing about her again.

"I'm telling you, she's not ready for this!"

"She's thirteen years old, Atsuko."

"Yes, but she hasn't…"

"She won't benefit from being held back. Besides, this will give her a chance to interact with people her own age."

"But in such a dangerous place?"

"I promise, it will work out. It won't escalate to the point it has here. You know I would never make that mistake again…"

"Malini?"

Her friend's voice snapped her out of her funk. "I-I'm okay," she insisted, even as a nervous ache continued to grow in her stomach. Even Atsuko didn't think she could do it. Maybe she was right.

"By the way, where are we going again?" Laurier asked. "I kinda forgot."

If she was to be honest, Malini didn't know the exact answer to that herself. "They said…to a world far, far away from here." A whole world away. She couldn't begin to wrap her head around the true distance. "T-The people who started the war. Toxic. That's where they wanna attack next."

"What? That sounds really scary!" And she didn't disagree. The very idea of running into Toxic made her nauseous. She hadn't been around for the worst of the war. Only heard stories from others. From what she could remember, they were an organization who wanted to…recreate the world? Something along those lines. But they wanted everybody out of the way to do it. The worst, everyone said, was when they poisoned the kingdom's crops. They were able to save many. But not all. She couldn't imagine what plans they'd come up with that might be even worse. Not to mention her…connections… She shuddered.

But a pair of tiny arms gave a gentle hug around her neck. "I bet you could stop them, Malini!" Laurier said. "You're so brave and smart!"

Aww; she blushed. If there was anyone that always had faith in her, it was Laurier. "T-That's right. I guess that's what they think, too. Everybody thinks I'm special, right?"

"I knew you were special right away!"

"I know, Laurier." But that was the thing. She was only considered unusual because she had a fairy, right? The fairy that changed her, that brought her here. They were connected. There was something more to it all, but what it might be, she couldn't guess. Only the queen knew, and she wouldn't tell anyone the whole story. "But you're the real special one, right? They said fairies were extinct before you." She gave her companion a pat on the head.

"Um…I guess so…" Laurier stopped to consider. "But that doesn't mean you're not special, too!"

She wanted to agree; she really did. But a little voice in her head continued fighting back. "Or I'm special for all the wrong reasons…"

Laurier's expression turned to one of concern. "Malini…"

"I know you and the queen say that part of me is gone, but…" Maybe that was the worst part. She had no memory of what she'd been before. Whenever she asked, people seemed reluctant to go into full detail. But she got the message well enough. It was something that shouldn't have ever existed. Something that could only be used to hurt, to maim, to kill. A vile, monstrous thing. She had been a monster.

"Don't listen to those jerkfaces!" Laurier grabbed onto her tighter. "You're the best ever, Malini! The best!"

Before Malini could answer, a voice echoed down the hall, this time directed toward her.

"Malini! Are you ready?" _Atsuko!_

"Y-Yes! Almost ready!" And she had forgotten all about her suitcase until now. However hard she tried to close it, the latch just wouldn't come together. Her arms ached with every pull, protesting the strain they were being put through. If only she were as strong as Atsuko.

" _Malini!"_

"Coming!" When nothing else worked, she attempted to ram her body against the suitcase, jumping with as much force as she could muster. Huh. It actually worked! Quickly, before Atsuko could get too impatient, she clapsed her suitcase and rushed out of her room, down the hall to the main foyer. The bag sure was heavier than it looked.

Finally, she stepped into the center of the room. The foyer, usually bustling with activity, felt so empty today. All she could see was Atsuko coming to greet her. At least she didn't look to be angry anymore.

"There you are," she smiled, letting out a sigh of relief. Something sounded…off about it, although Malini couldn't decide what. "How are you? Are you feeling okay?"

Her stomach still felt like it would leap out through her throat, but the idea of disappointing her, or god forbid, the queen… "I-I'm okay," she nodded.

The knight sighed again. "It's all right if you're nervous. I don't blame ya." She shivered as she took a strand of her green-tinted hair in one hand. Atsuko had never done that before. But actually, she did kind of like it. Atsuko had always worked so hard to make sure she was being taken care of. Was that what a mother was like…?

As if hearing her thoughts, she hesitated and backed off. "Well, I guess we better get started." She led her across the room, to a door she hadn't noticed before. Laurier continued to hold on to the side of her head, trying to comfort her. She took a deep breath. _Here we go._

Upon getting her first look at the room's interior, her eyes were overwhelmed. Shining hues of gold and white surrounded her. The rest of the castle was already beautiful, but this place looked spectacular! Like standing in the middle of the sun.

And there, at the other end of the vast, meticulously cleaned floor - tiled to look like a sunburst, too - was the royal throne. And the queen, sitting on it.

Midori's eyes widened. To be in the presence of Queen Naseyda herself! What should she do? What should she say?! All she could think to do was drop onto the floor and bow so low she nearly hit her head on the floor. It was at that moment that Laurier was flung down to the ground. "Oh! Sorry!"

The queen chuckled, in that rich, booming voice of hers. A sort of voice that intimated those who heard it…and yet, there was a comforting quality to it, too. Everybody always told her how she ruled the kingdom with such a kind heart. She'd only got to see her a few times, but from what she did see, it looked to be true. After all, she did let her stay here.

Tending to her friend, she didn't see Her Majesty walk up to her until until she was right by her feet. Her jaw dropped. "Y-Y-Yo…y-your ma…"

But she was interrupted. "You really love Laurier, don't you, Malini?"

Malini blushed. It'd be an easy question to answer coming from anyone else, but out of the queen's mouth, she could barely put a sentence together. Well…wasn't it obvious? Laurier was everything to her. She had done everything _for_ her. "Of, of course!" she said, taking the fairy in her arms.

"I love Malini, too!" Laurier blurted out, making her friend blush even more.

Their ruler laughed again. It was weird hearing laughter coming from such a dignified figure. Weird, but good. She found herself relaxing just a bit, and smiled.

Seeing that things were going well, the queen continued. "You two have a very strong bond. I haven't seen anything like it in a long, long time." She began pacing around the room, as if in thought. "Others have told you, haven't they? Fairies were thought to be extinct for hundreds of years now. Killed off by the chaos of human conflict."

She nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"And yet, in this time of peril…Laurier was born."

Malini remembered the story well. Apparently they found her growing in the castle gardens like a flower. The idea fascinated her. That something so incredible could grow from nothing…

"From what was recorded into those ancient times, a fairy always had a human companion," she continued. "They would choose a person of admirable virtue, and they would 'link.' The fairy's power would be that person's power, and vice versa."

She softly gasped at the queen's explanation. She'd learned a little bit about fairies, but nothing about this. _The fairy's power is the person's power…_ No, that didn't sound right. She was weak and clumsy. And…she hadn't exactly been human when that happened, either, had she? Nor anything close to virtuous. "But Your Majesty," she muttered, "I don't have…I can't…"

At that moment, she felt a head rest on her head. The queen was touching her! She was stunned. The royal smiled at her. "Malini," she said, "you have more strength than you realize. With time, you and Laurier will become even closer. You'll grow stronger together. If you ever find yourself in danger, remember that you're not alone."

All at once, she was aware of it. As she and Laurier made eye contact, she could feel the connection between them, as if it had been idling and decided to reveal itself just then. It was a sensation she couldn't entirely comprehend, but the closest she could describe it was…a warmth. A soothing, uplifting warmth, wisping through her, making her feel that somehow, everything was going to be okay. She wasn't sure what to do, so in awe at this discovery. For a moment, it felt like only her and Laurier existed, floating in this pocket of sunlight…

"Well, then," With Naseyda's voice, she came to her senses once again. "Are you ready to go?"

Somehow, she found her nerves had vanished. In its place was confidence - eagerness, even. She wanted to prove herself to everyone, and she wanted to help the people that had helped her so much throughout her first year of life. A determined smile spread on her face. "I'm ready."

The queen nodded. "Atsuko, you can take care of it from here."

Atsuko stepped forward, still putting on a smile, but something was wrong. She wasn't holding herself like she usually did; head high, sure of herself, eager for adventure. Malini hadn't seen her like this since the topic of the war came up.

Walking up to the knight, she received a strange handheld device, a gold tablet with a wide screen and a few sparse buttons. It looked sort of like what the bookkeepers used to organize the library, but fancier. She tilted her head.

"This will let you communicate between worlds," she explained. "If you need to talk to someone, you just go in, and you can contact me…or any of the housekeepers you'd like."

Oh! How nice. Excited to give it a try, she turned the machine on. But she didn't recognize this interface. In fact, it only gave her one button to push. "What does this do?" she asked.

"It's programmed to take you to your destination. All you have to do is press the button."

Malini stared at the blinking red circle being displayed before her. This was it. Either stay or go. Double checking she was fully prepared, she looked over both shoulders. "Laurier?"

"Right here." Laurier climbed up onto one shoulder. She smiled. Yes…everything would be fine. With newfound determination, she took her suitcase in one hand. Strange; it didn't feel quite so heavy anymore. And she gave her home one last look.

"I'll be back soon," she said to no one in particular. She closed her eyes, and she pressed.

In a blink, the room around her disappeared - no, _everything_ disappeared. No ground, no sky, not even air. Just blinding blue stars speeding all around her, so fast they appeared as nothing but blurred streaks. She felt as if she was floating. She began to feel dizzy. Her ears popped, unpopped, popped again, on and on.

She felt the grip on her shoulder tighten, felt her friend's fear as well as her own. "Laurier!" she tried to shout, but no sound came out. Everything spun wherever she looked. In front of her, behind her, up, down. But the longer she spent here, the harder it was to remember which way was which. Desperate for some semblance of logic, she shut her eyes tight to try and block it out, but it didn't help. Her perception was invaded by chaos; there was nothing else left.

And then…her feet hit something hard. There was ground again? With some hesitation, she opened her eyes.

Malini found herself standing atop rustic cobblestone pavement , with no sign of the bizarre place she had previously been. Wait, where had these shoes come from? A pair of black mary janes stared back at her. Her eyes traveled upwards, seeing that her entire outfit had changed. Now she wore a high waisted pleated skirt and a cropped jacket. She caught sight of the building before her. A tall structure, could almost be called a tower, but there was no steeple.

 _What is this place?_ she wondered to herself. The sky looked the same as it did in Naseyda. So did the grass and trees. Yet, the buildings looked completely different. Was she really in another world, or just in a faraway country?

Adorable squeaks entered her right ear. She'd almost forgot! "Laurier!" The fairy, still perched on her shoulder, looked none the worse for wear, but she could feel she was still nervous. "Are you okay?"

"I think so…" Like her friend, she eyed her surroundings with a bit of unease. "Is this where we're supposed to go?"

Malini shrugged. "It must be." Why would the device take her anywhere else? Here outside, there was no sign of any people. It was a bit chilly, too. It had been warm and sunny when she left…

"Oh yeah, they said you have to hide while you're here." To keep away from Toxic, maybe? Though she hated the idea of her not being there to talk to, if it was for her safety…

Laurier hung her head, but nodded in understanding and climbed down to her hip, stuffing herself in her new skirt pocket. Wouldn't people notice that it looked so bulgy? But there wasn't any other place to hide. They'd just have to hope for the best.

In that case, there was nowhere to go but inside. _Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine._ Trying to stay brave, she pulled one of the double front doors open.

A long hallway greeted her. It was much like back home, lined with rooms on either side, the flooring tiled. Not nearly as extravagant, but it looked easy to navigate. The only problem was, nobody had bothered to tell her which room she needed to be in.

Then, she was startled by a noise. It sounded like a bell? Every single door in the hallway flung open, and people came pouring out. People of all ages, all shades, all sizes. The one thing they had in common, though, was their uniform. It looked the same as what she was wearing now, or at least similar. Well, at least she knew she was in the right place.

Which direction was she headed in, then? Maybe she should ask somebody. But as she tried to speak up, all the anxiety she'd been holding back bubbled to the surface again, and she clammed up. "Um…e-excuse…" Nobody seemed to notice her. Maybe she was too quiet. "Could you please help me…I-I'm trying to find…"

Mid-sentence, a particularly noisy group collided with her head-on, sending her hurtling down to the floor.

"Get out of the middle of the hallway! Some of us are trying to walk."

That was all the answer she got from them. Not even an apology. The hallway blurred. Her glasses. What happened to her glasses?

"Hey! You okay there?"

Looking around to find the source of the voice, towering above her she saw the shrouded silhouette of a short girl in purple. Was she okay? She supposed she'd been worse before, but as long as she couldn't see anything… Her thoughts drifted to her glasses again, and she began groping the floor.

"Hm... Oh, were you looking for these?" She picked up a barely visible object several feet away. The last place she would've looked. Unable to stand another minute of crawling and squinting, she desperately grabbed the eyewear from his hand, pushing them back on her face with so much force that she could've easily broken them in half.

Except… "Orange," she noticed. A big, orange blotch covered half of one lens. The floor hadn't looked that dirty. She tried to wipe it off.

The other girl's demeanor changed. "Whoops! I forgot to wash my hands again." She sighed. "Sorry, just got back from the art room."

An artist! Now that sounded interesting. "I-It's okay. It'll come off." There was still a little smudge left, but now she could see much more clearly, and she could clean it off better when she got a chance to sit down. She took in the stranger's features - a rounded face, rosy cheeks, and a cute, curly little bun. She radiated friendliness. "Uh, thank you, miss." Was it appropriate to call someone the same age as you a 'miss?' But she couldn't think of anybody she didn't call a mister or missus - besides Laurier, anyway.

"No problem," she smiled, her curls bouncing with every little movement. Her eyes widened. "Oh, yeah! You must be my new roommate that was supposed to move in today. I'm Kayin. Kayin Mercier. Malini Midori, right? Welcome to Aroha Academy!" She reached out to shake her hand.

Midori? Why did she need two names here? "Yes," she agreed anyway. Better not to question anything. The queen knew what she was doing; complaining would be ungrateful. "It's very nice to meet you." So this was a school? She'd heard of the little schools in the village before. This was bigger than she thought any school could ever be!

"Nice to meet you, too!" Kayin replied. For the first time since getting here, Malini actually felt excited. She could have human friends here! Like, the housekeepers back home were nice enough, but that was their job, right? Not that she loved Laurier any less, but one friend was hardly enough to hold her over all the time, and there were some things fairies just couldn't seem to understand.

But she found her tongue still twisted - metaphorically, at first. Her heart quickened. What could she say to make a good first impression? "Uh…a-ah…I…" Goodness, she couldn't even get a word out! She sounded like such an idiot. "So, um…you like painting?"

She chuckled. "Are you kidding? Painting is my life! I wouldn't be here otherwise." It was only then she realized not only what a rainbow wreck her hands were - but her sleeves, and everything below that. "Come on, we were gonna head to our room anyway, right? Then we can both get cleaned up."

She began making her way own the hallway, and Malini did her best to keep up. As they made their way further into the building, the people surrounding them became more and more plentiful. Her stomach fluttered at the thought of trying to interact with them all on a daily basis, although she tried to _look_ calm, at least.

Once they made their way out of the elevator onto the fifth floor, the crowds dispersed quite a bit. Oh, now she got it. Every room number here was a 500. So a hundred rooms for each floor?

"Here we are! Room 522." Her roommate pushed the key into the lock, and they were in. She took a few cautious steps inside. It didn't look anything like her old room, but it was nice enough. Pretty spacious. The beds looked comfortable. Wait a miunte. Was that a kitchen? A kitchen in her room! The thought blew her away. She'd have to learn to cook now, wouldn't she? So much to figure out at once…

In the corner of the room, she heard Kayin again. "Wait, wait! Watch out for my…"

Before she had time to wonder what, her foot was obstructed, and she tripped on something that made a hollow _clunk_.

"…Paint box." As Malini pushed herself up, she came over and kicked it out of the way. "That was a dumb place for me to put it anyway. You okay?"

"Y-Yeah. I'm fine." That was the second time she'd fallen today. Everyone at home was used to her klutziness, but with all these new people around… "It's not your fault. I wasn't looking."

"No, no, you _should_ be looking around! Sorry I didn't clean the place up before you got here." With that, she took a step into what Malini assumed was the bathroom. "You gonna be okay if I take a shower real quick?"

Oh, great. Now her new friend thought that she was helpless. "Of course! I'll be fine." So much for proving herself. She needed to get her act together if she wanted to succeed here.

"Okay then. Once I'm done, I'll show you around a bit." The bathroom door shut. Malini was alone again. Just a few minutes in and she was already exhausted. Better that she rested anyway, so she didn't hurt herself a third time. Before long she was able to find her bed (the one that was neatly made, as opposed to the other one, with sheets stripped every which way), and flopped on top of it, her suitcase haphazardly placed at the side.

And then she felt something squirm out of her pocket. "Laurier!" How could she forget about Laurier? "You didn't get hurt too, did you?"

"No," she shook her head, taking a moment to glance around the room. "That girl sounded really nice. I'm happy we get to stay with her."

"Me, too," she agreed. Kayin was so outgoing it almost got to be too much, but that was better than someone who didn't have any interest in her at all. "The queen wanted me to make friends here. I hope I do a good job."

For a moment, Laurier seemed concerned.

"Is everything okay?"

"You're gonna have lots of friends soon," she replied, although she didn't make that sound like a good thing.

She blushed. "Well, I don't know about a lot…" Just a few friends would be fine; anything more felt overwhelming. Even the one right now had her struggling to keep up the pace.

She was quiet for a moment. "Malini, I'm still your friend, right?"

Wait, what? Why would the question even come up? "Of course you are!" Malini leaned over to hug her friend. "No matter what, you'll always be my best friend. Okay?"

Evidently it didn't take much convincing. "Okay," she said with a chuckle. "I wish I didn't have to hide all the time. I wanna make friends, too."

At that, she could only sigh. She wished that could be the case, too. "I know, I know. I don't like it, either. But you remember what they said."

"Do you really think Toxic is here?"

They had to be, right? They wouldn't just send them to a strange place for no reason. Still, it was hard to imagine that they could reach a place as nice as this, too. For the school's sake, she hoped it wasn't true. Otherwise… "I guess we'll just have to find out," she said with a gulp. The longer they could delay it, the better.

Apparently Laurier couldn't think of anything comforting to say this time. An uncomfortable silence lingered between the two of them. Until one of Laurier's ears perked up. "Did you hear that?"

"Hm? What?"

"There was…" Now that she mentioned, she could make out odd clattering sound. Poor Malini was such a nervous wreck, every noise made her jump. "From the kitchen," Laurier continued.

There was nobody in the kitchen…that either of them knew of. Maybe something just fell by itself? Or maybe… The idea was ridiculous, but with an organization like Toxic, nothing was impossible. And sitting here cowering would accomplish nothing. "I'm sure it's nothing. Uh, why don't we go see?"

Still, once she'd hopped off the bed, her feet refused to move across the room too quickly. The dread was just too much. Knowing herself, she was getting all worked up over something silly. And yet…

Sure enough, when she heard the clattering again, a cabinet door briefly opened just a crack, then shut again. Was it something living? An animal? Swallowing her fear, she reached out to grab the doorknob…

Suddenly, Kayin's jumped out in front of them. "I'm back!" Panicking, Malini stuffed Laurier back into her pocket before she had the chance to protest. Wait, did this secrecy apply to friends, too? She guessed anybody could secretly be part of Toxic… But no, she couldn't even conceive of the idea of Kayin being evil.

Did Kayin seem kind of jumpy, too? It seemed like she could never read people properly. "Haha, looks like you're already settled. Everything comfy?"

"Oh, yes! Yes, very comfy." She wondered how much of that conversation she'd be able to hear from the bathroom. Probably better not to dwell on it. Just pretend it didn't happen and it would be fine.

"Good!" And with that, she grabbed her purse off the table by her own bed. "All right. Ready to get going?"

What about the thing in the cupboard? Well…as long as they were out of the room, it wouldn't hurt them. "I think so." Should she have a bag or something to carry around, too? But she didn't have anything to carry, besides Laurier. Off the bed she hopped, and they were on their way. "Where are we going first?"

It didn't take long to get an answer. "The cafeteria! I'm starving. Oh, and you gotta be hungry after that plane ride over here."

"Plane…ride…" What was a plane? "Uh, yeah." She decided just to go along with it, not wanting to embarrass herself any further. "Let's go there, then."

* * *

Fifteen hours. Fifteen hours she'd spent in this hellhole, and no sign of this bizarro creature she was supposed to be looking for. Arsenia couldn't stand another minute here on these schoolgrounds. Leaves in her hair, her dress coated in muck, and every once in a while, an ant crawled up her arm or leg. She paced around constantly - partly to keep them off, and partly because she was crazy bored - but it didn't help all that much.

Why did the boss insist on giving her this job, anyway? It was bad enough that they forced her to "camp out." Sleeping in the woods, like some kind of animal! Did they want her to come out of this with any shred of dignity at all? She deserved better than this. A half decent hotel room, at least. She would've preferred a suite, but she could be flexible.

"This fairy better show up soon or…" What was a fairy even supposed to look like? Hemlock, their magic expert, had described them as "plant-like." Well, there were plenty of plants around here - too many, in fact - but none of them talked or moved. Should she have be looking for an animal? All the animals here were _disgusting_. Weren't fairies supposed to be beautiful?

She wouldn't get in trouble if she just went home, would she? They'd let her off with a slap on the wrist before. Except… _Sigh._ They hadn't given her any way of getting home. For the time being, she was stuck. Maybe if she threw enough of a tantrum, they'd give in? No, she'd done plenty of that so far, and nothing.

Then Arsenia had no other option but to stick it out. But she didn't have to be happy about it. "I'm gonna have to get this dress pressed and dry cleaned, and these ringlets are gonna take ages to fix…" She ran her fingers through her hair in vain. No chance of getting everything out without a mirror.

And then…the crunching of leaves. "Huh?" Those definitely weren't her own footsteps. Finally, someone else decided to show up. Arsenia grinned. Maybe she'd get lucky after all.

* * *

"…And here in the woods, they do nature studies and stuff," Kayin explained, talking a mile a minute. Malini tried to hang onto every word, even if she couldn't help missing a couple here and there. "Sometimes I come out here to paint, but I think it's more interesting indoors, y'know? People are more fun to paint than trees."

"Right, yeah," Malini nodded, pretending to understand. Although from her point of view, both people and trees were equally interesting. She hadn't had the chance to see much of either up to this point. "But I think it's really pretty."

She smirked. "It is, isn't it? I guess you forget when you see it every day." There was a pleasant moment of silence between the two of them, just taking in the scenery. Emerald green leaves rustling, swaying, a stray leaf here and there dancing in the wind…even the grass seemed to tickle Malini's feet through her shoes. It seemed…odd. At first she thought it just felt nice to get some fresh air, but…there was another feeling there. One she couldn't quite identify, nor figure out how to fully relish in…

"Malini? Malini! Are you there?"

A hand waved in front of her face. And just like that, she snapped out of it. What on earth was that about? "Sorry. I…spaced out." Maybe she'd make some time to come back here by herself. "Is, is that everything? The whole school?"

Kayin shrugged. "Pretty much. Past here there's the town, but that takes a whole day by itself, and we have a curfew."

"Curfew?"

"Gotta be in bed by 11. That's the rules." Kayin pouted.

Malini didn't mind. "I can't stay up that late anyway."

"You're gonna have to once they start giving you these tight deadlines," she replied. "Homework's a real pain."

"Oh…" What was homework, anyway? Never mind; she'd already asked enough stupid questions today. Definitely got some weird looks in her direction.

Apparently Kayin saw that she was holding back, because she laid a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it. Everyone has trouble getting used to this school at first. It's different for everyone, you know? People come here from all over."

Maybe she should've tried to cheer up. If Kayin said there was no reason to feel bad, she had no reason not to trust her. Still, she sighed. "I hope I get used to it soon," she said.

"You will, faster than you think. I know it." It was a good thing she ended up with such a nice roommate, Malini thought to herself. It would be easy to make friends with someone like her. As long as she didn't tire out first.

Kayin stepped aside and took a moment to stretch her legs out. "What a walk! Campus still feels huge, even after this long. I think I'm up for hanging out in our room the rest of the day. How about you?"

Was it already that late? It was true - the sun was already starting to set, and the air was gradually getting colder. But…she couldn't bring herself to leave. Not just yet.

"I-I think I'm gonna stay out here for a little bit." Just enjoy the breeze a few minutes more. It would be a while before it got too dark, right? She'd have plenty of time.

Kayin smiled. "A nature lover, huh? Suit yourself. Oh! Wait." She dug through her skirt pocket, producing a key. "Forgot to give you your room key. Come back whenever you want."

A key! Very important that she didn't lose this. "Of course," she nodded, shoving it deep into her other pocket.

"All right, see you around!" Kayin made her way back to the main building…and with that, Malini was alone again. Alone, except for…

At that moment, Laurier managed to squirm her way out of the skirt again. "It's too tight in there!" she whined, shaking out her crinkled ears and tail.

Her poor friend looked like she was in pretty rough shape. "Sorry!" she cried. "I'll get something better for you. A nice, big bag."

She continued to grumble, hopping up into Malini's arms. "Why should I have to hide at all? There hasn't been any sign of Toxic since we got here."

Malini couldn't argue with that; everyone they'd run into during their little tour seemed like perfectly nice people. Even the one who'd chewed her out for crashing into her on her…a skateboard was what she called it, right? _Skateboard_. Maybe she could try one out some time. On the other hand, if riding one hurt as much as running into one…

"Y-You never know," she reminded herself. "Atsuko said a lot of people can pretend to be nice, remember?" So was there a sure way to tell what was genuine and what was fake? If there was, she had yet to pick up on it.

"That's stupid," she snapped back. "The queen wants to make friends, so how can you do that if you're not allowed to trust anybody?"

She bit her lip. "Hmm…good point…" As her thoughts deepened, that odd sensation came creeping back again. The sounds of the forest echoing around her. And before too long, she noticed that Laurier seemed to be enjoying it, too, her eyes closed and her ears traveling along with the breeze.

"I think this is my favorite place in the whole school," she said wistfully.

Malini smiled. "Fairies are supposed to have a special connection to nature, right?" Maybe that was it? If they were 'linked,' like everyone said… "I-I guess I kinda feel it, too."

Laurier opened her eyes again. "Really? That's great!" Truthfully, she knew her fairy friend understood her powers just about as much as anybody else did, maybe even less so. If they discovered anything new, they were discovering it together. "Do, do you here what the trees say?"

What the trees _say_? She could vaguely pick up the sound of something resembling words, but however hard she tried to make it out, the words wouldn't come to her. "I…I'm trying, but…"

The fairy shut her eyes, taking another chance to listen. "They say there's somebody…" A _crunch_ interrupted her train of thought. She looked around frantically. "That wasn't a tree."

No? "Maybe a squirrel?" Then she heard another crunch. And another. And another. And they seemed to be getting louder. It couldn't be… Footsteps. "Is there someone on the other side of the woods?" But that was such a long way away. It went on forever, an endless tunnel of greenery. Until a spot of black and white emerged.

And that spot of black and white turned out to be a person. A girl in a dark, lacy dress, perfectly curled pigtails… She could almost be a princess, besides the fact that she was covered in dirt. And she didn't look pleasant like a princess. In fact, she looked more angry than anything.

"Finally!" The stranger let out a huff. "It took you long enough to show your face here! I've been waiting for freaking ever!"

"W-What? But we've never met."

The girl rolled her eyes. "I'm not talking about _you_. I'm talking about that." A dainty little finger pointed to the fairy she held in her arms.

Her eyes widened. She'd only been away from home for an hour or two, and already she'd messed up this badly? Was there any place here she could spend time with her friend safely? Never mind that, right now they were cornered. What could she do? Instinctively, her grip around Laurier tightened. "But, but why?"

"Never you mind! Just hand over the fairy, and make it quick!" She could tell the girl's temper was rising. What would happen if she snapped?

"I…I can't…" There had to be a way out of this. Malini knew she should've ran away, but her legs felt like jelly. The best she could do was take a few steps backwards.

And then she heard Laurier's voice. "Go away! Leave us alone!"

That sent her into panic mode. In a frenzy, her hand rushed to cover Laurier's mouth. She usually appreciated her honesty, but now had to be the worst possible time.

The girl scoffed. "Who knew fairies had such an attitude? All right, enough talk." This time, she just reached out and grabbed the fairy by the ears.

Malini held on for dear life. So tightly she worried for a moment that she was hurting her, although Laurier wasn't complaining. The girl pulled one way; she pulled the other. This tug of war continued for what felt like forever. What if this person ripped her ears off? Her imagination just kept offering more and more horrific possibilities.

At some point, she fell backwards onto the grass. Why were her arms empty? Her heart skipped a beat. "Laurier!"

Sure enough, there was Laurier in the other girl's clutches, being dangled by her ears in one hand. That sure looked painful. But Laurier put up quite the fight, flailing around to no avail.

"You and Toxic are the worst people ever!" she shouted, though the girl refused to listen. "You poisoned everybody, and you killed a bunch of people, and you were gonna make Malini do all your bad things, and…"

"Shut up!" The girl slapped the fairy without hesitaiton. Malini yelped.

Then, suddenly the girl stopped. There was a long pause. "…What was that you said about who now?" She glanced back at Malini.

Oh, no. _Oh, no…_

Malini should've known better than to leave her friend behind. She really should have. But that one sentence filled with so much fear, she tried to make a run for it. It was no use. The stranger snatched her by the collar before she could get too far.

"Now that it mentions it…" The nerve of this person, calling Laurier an 'it!' If there weren't more pressing matters, she would've objected strongly. "You do look a little familiar."

"I…I don't know any of you!" Like that would work now.

This was never supposed to happen. Atsuko said this would never happen. This had to be a nightmare. How could she wake herself up? _Wake up! Wake up!_

The girl smirked, clutching her by the chin. "What? You don't even remember cute little Arsenia?" Arsenia. Now she had a name for this person. The person that would probably kill her. Or god forbid, abduct her, lock her back up in their lab! She'd much prefer dying to that.

Arsenia let out a snicker, then a laugh. An awful, shrill laugh. Malini's heart was about to pound out of her chest. "I remember you now. You were our top secret project. The one that was _stolen_ from us!"

She shoved Malini back to the ground; her glasses flew across the field. She wasn't sure if not being able to see her impending doom made this better or worse. "No! I-I'm not yours!" As hard as she tried to look brave, she couldn't help trembling from head to toe.

"Don't give me that. You can never really leave Toxic." As if to mock her, she got right up in her face. Up close, she could tell that now, even Laurier was scared. "You know what we do to traitors, don't you?"

Of course she didn't know, nor did she want to. But it sounded like she was about to find out…

"Malini, run!" Laurier cried.

Laurier was right. This was her last chance to escape… No, she couldn't just abandon her. "Not without you!"

"I'll be okay, just go!"

"But…"

Before she could even consider her next move, a high heel was driven right into her stomach. She gagged; no going anywhere now. "Don't even think about it. You really think it's gonna be that easy? Since you're so stubborn, I'm gonna have to do this the hard way."

The hard way? You mean that _wasn't_ the hard way? Malini thought about closing her eyes to make things easier, but she couldn't look away. Her eyes followed every movement as Arsenia tossed her silver locket over her shoulder into the woods. For what felt like an eternity, nothing happened. And then…

The ground began to rumble. A vine emerged out of nowhere, then two, then three, then… It only took a few seconds to lose count. Even if she wasn't trapped, Malini would've been frozen in terror. A tangled mass of vines crawling along the ground like tentacles… Then looking into its core, the only things visible were pitch darkness, and a pair of eerie glowing eyes, visible underneath.

And here she was, face to face with the abomination that would mean her death. All she could do was scream.

"Toxikon, get her!" Arsenia cried. Its vines shot outward, growing longer and longer at an impossible rate. A couple grabbed her left arm. As she tried to pull away, the thorns pierced her skin, and she cried out in pain. Another pair took the right arm. Before long her legs were bound. And they just kept on coming.

Laurier tried desperately to reach to her. "Please, stop! Don't hurt her!" Arsenia's open palm hit her again.

"Laurier!" Malini screamed.

"Malini!"

It was hopeless; vines crawled up her torso and neck, already dangerously close to her head. She struggled in vain as her vision was obscured.

Darkness. Now nothing but darkness surrounded her. There was something viscerally terrifying about this place. At first, she tried to escape. Every movement she made just dug every thorn further into every part of her body. Her wounds burned. Were these poison? Although she couldn't see anything, vertigo hit her hard. Her movements weakened.

So this was it. She was going to die here. Tears fell down her cheeks; her first day out of the castle, and this happened. No wonder Atsuko never wanted her to leave. She'd let everybody down in the end…

But there was nothing she could do. Nothing but resign herself to her fate. Malini was done for. She couldn't even save Laurier, her best friend…

"… _Malini!"_

She thought she'd heard a voice. But this horrid chamber of vines was soundtight. Was the sensory deprivation making her hallucinate?

" _Malini!"_

Soon she realized it wasn't her ears. It was like she was hearing with her mind. What if she thought back?" _"Laurier…?"_

" _Malini! Are you there?"_

It hit her in a moment of epiphany. She couldn't see any trace of Laurier, couldn't hear her, but she could _feel_ that she was there, beyond these impenetrable walls. She was okay! She was right there, next to her! _"Yes! Yes, I'm here!"_ she thought with as much effort as she could muster.

" _You're alive!"_ Right now, there was nothing more comforting than hearing that familiar voice. _"Malini, hang in there! I'll get to you."_

She couldn't bear the idea of Laurier trying to save her. So brave, but so small and fragile… They'd done _this_ to Malini, what if they did the same thing to her?

" _No!_ " she shouted back, a little louder than she'd meant to. _"I'll get out of here. I'll get to you first."_

" _Malini…"_

" _We're…together."_ A statement that repeated over and over again in her mind. _"Even when we're separated like this, we're together!"_

Slowly fear was being snuffed out by a burning determination. The queen had been right; this bond between them was special. She had to do whatever she could to protect it, to protect _her_.

So she fought. Fought against her restraints, even as her wounds deepened, as blood trickled down her arms. Any pain she felt just made her fight harder. It couldn't be long now. She just had to push a little harder. Harder!

" _As long as I have you…as long as we're together…nothing can hurt us! We can do anything!"_

She had to be close to the end now. She could already see the light emerging from the outside. Or…wait, it couldn't be. Was the light coming from _inside?_

Though she never stopped moving, never stopped trying to get out, she became aware of a familiar yet unknown sensation growing within her. This was…just like what she'd felt in the castle. But it evolved past that, quickly growing stronger, much stronger. All the while, this light grew brighter and brighter. An incredible power was filling her, overtaking her…

" _We…can…do…anything…"_

That time, she thought she had felt Laurier speaking in unison with her. She shuddered; all at once, the strange power reached its maximum, bursting out of her. She was compelled to shout, but she couldn't hear her own voice. Blinding white light overcame her vision, engulfed her from all sides. Sensations overwhelmed her…

And then, the light faded.

Malini found herself back on her feet. She was free. She could move! Besides that, it immediately registered just how different she felt. Still like herself, but somehow _more_ than herself. Every inch of her was packed with a strength she'd never felt before. Feeling her formerly shoulder-length hair brush softly, along her back, the unfamiliar fabrics against her skin, she could guess that she must've looked quite a bit different, too.

And yet, she took it all in stride. All that mattered right now was making sure Laurier was safe and sound. Laurier…this was all thanks to Laurier.

Her eyes darted over to where Laurier was last; somehow she'd wiggled free from Arsenia's grasp, thank goodness. Her eyes were wide, her jaw agape. "M-Malini?"

She flashed her friend a smile. They could talk about all this when the crisis was over. Speaking of which…Arsenia. Her expression was almost identical to Laurier's, before shifting to anger.

"Wh-What was that light show?!" The monster she called a Toxikon whimpered behind her, tending to its broken vines, but she didn't pay it any attention. "Just what the hell are you?!

Good question. For the first time since this happened, she hesitated. Just what was…all this? Malini shut her eyes, trying to come up with an answer.

A nostalgic scent wafted around her. Memories of watching chefs in the royal kitchen, the gardeners in the yard, the cultivation and chopping of fresh herbs…

"Fra…grance…" Words came to her, but it took a second to arrange them into something that made sense. "A…a sweet, sacred fragrance that invigorates the spirit."

Then, she knew. She knew what she was, _who_ she was. Her eyes opened, and she clutched her fists with newfound confidence.

"Cure Basil!"


	2. Getting a Handle on Things

"Cure Basil? What kind of name is that?"

Malini…wait, no, she was Basil now. Cure Basil. Basil wasn't sure how to answer Arsenia's question. Maybe it wasn't that impressive. But it was _her_ name, a name that shouted out from the depths of her heart, her very soul. There were simply no other options.

So she didn't answer. Still, she never took her eyes off Arsenia. Cure Basil was ready to fight. It was just a matter of who would make the next move.

Arsenia sneered. "Nothing? Fine. I'll get some answers out of you _by force_!" The moment she raised her voice, the monster snapped out of whatever it was going on about; its cut vines grew back almost instantly. "Toxikon! You know what to do!"

The Toxikon charged at her. Caught off guard, she leapt backwards out of the way. _Not getting off to a great start so far…_ It took her a moment to realize how high in the air she'd jumped. And from the looks of it, she was still rising. Surrounded on all sides by blue sky. It felt almost like flying… _How wonderful!_

Up until the Toxikon sprung after her. Right when she was starting to descend, to boot. No avoiding it this time. Sooner or later, she'd have to attack in some way or another. If only Atsuko had let her train in swordsmanship.

One of its vined tentacles entered the corners of her vision. Without thinking, she grabbed at it, and in one radial motion, flung the monster across the other side of the field.

Her eyes followed it soaring in an arc across the sky. _Did I really just do that?_ That entire _thing_ must've weighed a ton, but in that moment, it had felt like nothing.

Unforuntately, it shot a tentacle downwards into the ground, anchoring itself, and creating a decent sized crater in the process. It then swung itself back in her direction, making itself a living projectile. It came at her so fast, she only had a half second to get out of the way. A vine still grazed her exposed arm, leaving quite the scrape.

"Ow…" Still, it didn't hurt as much as it had just minutes before. It seemed like she really could do anything while she was like this! Everything except actually land a hit.

Or couldn't she?

Eyes darting back and forth, watching vines twist in and out of each other, entangling and detangling… The beginnings of an idea formed. Was it a guarantee? No, truth be told, she wasn't sure of the effectiveness of anything she was doing. But if the one thing she _was_ sure of, was the need to keep Laurier safe…then anything was worth a shot.

"No matter how many times it takes…I can't give up!"

And so she put her plan into motion. Step one: run away. Well, more like jump away. To and fro, forwards and backwards. As she expected, the Toxikon had to reach out with multiple tentacles to keep up. If she just leapt this way, then through here… She had to move fast if she didn't want to get stuck.

Basil just barely dove through the 'ring' she'd created before another set of vines passed through it. She landed gently on her feet, and paused to admire her creation. Just like she'd pictured - a perfect knot! The monster struggled to untie himself, to no avail.

" _That was amazing, Malini!"_

Laurier! Looking behind her toward the woods, she couldn't see her…but she felt her, hiding in a bush. Basil couldn't help blushing a little. It wasn't often she managed to impress anyone.

So the Toxikon was now incapacitated. And now…now, a bunch of pent up power was begging to be released. Was this it? When she felt just how massive this was, whatever it was, she figured it had to be. She took a deep breath, emptied her mind, let the magic take control. Her arms shot out in front of her, her palms wide open.

"Precure…Leafy Essence!" The scent of herbs became stronger than ever. Countless glowing leaves appeared to spontaneously generate from her palms, creating a sparkling rain of green that spread continuously outwards, falling directly on the Toxikon as well as everything within a couple yards' radius.

It didn't seem to hurt the beast. In fact, for the first time, it looked calm. At ease. It let out a contented sigh and closed its eyes. Or maybe the eyes simply vanished. The mass of vines shuddered for a second or two, then deflated into just that: a lifeless pile of vines, scattered across the grass.

"I did it!" Her own magic had defeated a monster! Her heart swelled with a sense of accomplishment. _No_ ; she snapped herself out of it. The work wasn't done quite yet. There was still one more threat that needed to be taken care of. Her eyes fixed themselves onto Arsenia.

Arsenia visibly tensed up, taking a couple steps back. She'd look so threatening when they first ran into each other, but now… "H-Hey! You're done, aren't you? Monster's gone. Fairy's free. I'm, I'm done here."

"Oh, no you don't!" But before Basil could grab at her, Arsenia dropped something - a pellet? - and a smoke cloud formed, obscuring her completely. "Hey!" By the time the smoke cleared she was gone. "Oh…" She'd defeated the Toxikon, but that girl would come back. She just knew it.

Standing there by herself, with only her thoughts to keep her company…the gravity of what just happened sunk in. This was Laurier's power…no, _their_ power?

A lock of hair fell in front of her face, and she couldn't help playing with it a little. "This is mine?" she asked herself in wonder. She'd been right about it being longer, at least to chest level. Looping it around her finger, she marveled at how soft and silky it was, how perfectly every little spiral curl was shaped, any trace of frizz gone… However, the most drastic difference was the color. What was once a subtle green shade had become a brilliant chartreuse. She could only imagine what a difference a new hairstyle made. _What else has changed?_

Before she could make any further observations, she heard a rustling in the nearby bushes. "Of course! Laurier." When she pushed the leafy branches aside, sure enough, there she stood. Safe and sound, thank every god she could think of.

Laurier gazed back up at her, her eyes still wide with wonder. "Malini! You're, you're okay?"

She nodded, smiling. Funny, all her wounds seem to have disappeared the moment _this_ happened. "Laurier…" She took her friend in her arms. To think she'd come so close to losing her… Why were her eyes watering? "I…" She clutched her friend tighter. "I'm so glad you're okay!" she exclaimed. Now the tears came out full force, all the emotions she'd been holding back coming out at once.

To her surprise, Laurier joined in her little feeling-fest, tightly returning the hug, or as tightly as something so small could. "I'm glad you're okay, too!" For a minute or two, it was just that, letting everything out. Gradually, they both calmed down.

A little smile spread on Laurier's face. "You…you're beautiful."

 _Beautiful?_ Basil turned bright red. "Well…I, uh…" Her grip started to loosen; her eyes drooped. "I…I'm so tired." In a short burst of light, she felt everything undo itself. "Huh?"

"Oh! You're you again."

Laurier sounded pretty content with it, but Malini would be lying if she said she didn't feel a little disappointed. Everything really was back to the way it was before. Her hair, her clothes… No, it still didn't feel exactly the same as before. That strange new energy, it was all still there. It had just…retreated back into her? Resting on the edge, like just a few words could send it bursting forth again.

"I kinda thought I'd stay like that forever." So why did she change back? Just because she was tired? Trying to sort everything out only made her head hurt. "What, what even was _that_?"

Laurier paused before she came up with an answer. "It's us. It's our connection. Right?"

"I know that." _As long as we're together, we can do anything._ The statement still resonated with her, made something stir within her. "Laurier, you felt it too, right?"

"Uh-huh." She nodded, then fell deep into thought. "I wanted to see you so bad, it hurt, and then I started hearing you…no, _feeling_ you! And I wanted to make sure you didn't get hurt. And when you started talking about togetherness and… All the magic e-exploded!" Her little body trembled.

Malini laid a comforting hand on her head. "I know, I know," she said, keeping her tone gentle. "That was a lot to handle, wasn't it?"

Wait a minute. Something felt different. She lifted her hand.

"Laurier, your sprout!" The little seedling that sat upon the fairy's head had grown a little longer, its leaf a little bigger. It even had a new little branch, with the beginnings of a leaf budding at the end.

"My sprout?" She tried to reach up to her head, but her arms were too short to reach. To help her along, Malini carefully bent it downwards so she could touch. "It's true! It grew! I grew!" A gleeful grin spread on her face; she leapt out of her arms, flying around excitedly.

Malini couldn't help giggling, seeing her friend so happy. "The last time that happened was…when you met me, right?"

Laurier nodded. "Yeah. After we first connected."

When she was still…she didn't want to think about it. "So you grow when your magic grows?"

"I guess so." Finally, she landed on her friend's shoulder. "What about you? You changed this time, too."

"I sure did." It wasn't quite the same thing, though. "Cure. I said something about Precure, right?" _Precure. Precure._ She felt like she knew the meaning of the word when she was Basil, but now it eluded her. "How can we find out what that means?"

"Why don't you ask Atsuko? She knows everything."

Malini chuckled. "Doesn't it seem like it?" Goodness, was it already that dark out? Heaven only knew what time it was. "We need to go back inside and get some rest. Then we can ask her." Oh, right…they were supposed to be hiding. "D-Do you think you can get back into my pocket, just this once?"

Laurier let out a little whine, but ultimately, she did stuff herself back in. At least, she tried to. "Eep!" she squealed, popping back out. "When did you put this in here?" In her hands, she held something that almost looked like a flower.

"I never… What is that?" She took the object in her hands. It looked to be made of lacquered metal…or at least, that was as close as she could guess. In truth, she wasn't sure she'd ever seen a material like this before. It had an ethereal iridescence to it. She brushed her fingers against a petal's edge; sleek, but not too sharp. She couldn't begin to guess what it was… But she got the feeling that she needed it. Into the other pocket it went. "We can ask about that, too."

She tried to remember the way back to the school entrance. Though she felt exhausted, and her head was spinning… Her heart overflowed with joy. If she wasn't quite sure before that any trace of her connections with Toxic had vanished, surely this was proof, right? At least, she hoped so.

* * *

A complete and utter failure. Those four words best summed up the outcome of Arsenia's mission. After all that waiting, sitting in the cold and dirt, the fairy not only escaped, but it did…did _something_ to that girl!

"Agggh!" She kicked a tree hard, sending pain shooting through her toes. "Ow, ow, ow!" And to top it all off, she was even more of a mess than before. That smoke bomb had left a layer of gray ash across everything. "This'll take weeks to wash off," she whined to herself, grasping at her skirt.

Just as she was about to decide if sleeping on the grass or in a bush was a better alternative for the night, a hooded figure appeared abruptly behind her. She stopped in her tracks.

"Hemlock…" Did this have to happen right now? God, she was in so much trouble. She turned around to face him, but couldn't even make eye contact. "I-I know what you're thinking - "

"Don't get yourself in a tizzy now." Typical Hemlock. Talked like he was thirty years older than he actually was. "I just want to know the reason for the delay in our plan, that's all."

Should she have been honest about it? Truthfully, she wasn't even sure what had happened back there. She huffed. "All right. So here's the story. You said the fairy was in the woods. It was actually in the open field right outside of the woods."

"I see. I warned you that my tracking spell could be imprecise from such a long distance. At least it was nearby."

" _At least in was nearby?!_ " The gall of this man! "I had to lay in filth for eighteen hours because you can't do your job!"

"H-Hey, hey, take it easy!" he said, raising his hands. "Just…keep going. You found the fairy, and?"

Arsenia smirked. It didn't take much to make the guy nervous, but she knew how to push _everyone's_ buttons, even his. She had all of Toxic wrapped around her little finger. Usually.

"So I captured it easily, of course! There was just one teensy weensy little problem…" Okay, maybe not _one_ little problem. More like a ton of little problems that came together to form one huge problem. What problem would sound the least bad to start out with?

Hemlock folded his arms. "The girl, right?"

"…You knew about the girl?" That would've been good to know two hours ago. This day just kept getting worse and worse! She stomped at the ground. "Why does nobody ever tell me these things?"

"I _did_ tell you. You weren't listening."

Arsenia scoffed. If his lectures were _soooo_ important, then he had to make them sound more interesting. It wasn't her fault he had the most boring voice in the world. And the most boring subject matter.

Hemlock could only roll his eyes. "So from the sounds of it, the girl put up a fight?"

Now they were getting into the confusing parts. "Not much, at first. I was just gonna get rid of her." No one had ever survived a Toxikon assault like that before. She'd thought for sure it was impossible. And she still didn't understand _how_ the girl managed to do it. "Just when I had her beat…the fairy started vibrating, and then lit up? And then there was this big flash that blew up my Toxikon. And when she came out, she was wearing this tacky outfit and her hair was neon…"

"Stop right there." He began stroking his perfectly spiral curled beard in thought. Oh, no, that was never a good sign. Time to brace hereslf for another hour long lecture. "Did the word Precure come up at any point?"

Come to think of it… "Sure, I think she mentioned it a few times. She called herself Cure Leafy or something? Pathetic, right?" But she couldn't help shuddering at the memory. The stupid name hid a more formidable force than she'd ever been confronted with. It really was a good thing she made her exit when she did.

Hemlock sighed. "I was afraid of that." Then began the pacing. She was _not_ in the mood for this right now, but he spoke up again before she could. "Arsenia, are you at all familiar with the Precure legend?"

Now it was Arsenia's time to roll her eyes. "Come on, Hemlock, you know I don't read."

"Fine. Let me explain." This time, he raised a palm to her eye level, and before her eyes, images began to form. At least she was getting pictures this time around.

"In ancient times, before the so-called utopia of Naseyda came to be, the world existed in a state of disarray." A faint picture formed in his hand, like a painting that had faded from being left out in the sun too long, except this one moved. She couldn't make out a lot of detail since it was all so tiny, but it looked like a battle, from what she could tell. "This period was marked by years and years of endless war. Fraternization was a rare thing in those days. Every man was out for himself. You could think you had a friend one moment, and they'd find a reason to stab you in the back the next."

Arsenia squinted. What did this have to do with anything? And what in God's name was frat…fratah… "Can you keep this in English?" she snarked.

"I make no promises," he replied with a little smirk. The scene changed. In the middle of the battlefield, a seedling sprouted. This seedling then grew into a fairy. "Fairies couldn't survive on their own in this hostile environment, so they would seek out the few kindhearted people left to form a bond with." The fairy flew through the chaos, eventually coming across a person isolated from the fight, sitting by their lonesome. "It's said that those of especially high virtue or compassion would be granted sacred abilities, and those who had received this gift could be distinguished by a drastic alteration of their appearance. This not only served to protect the fairy, it was also meant to spread peace through the land."

"Well, if they all died, obviously that didn't work," she said.

"The people of Naseyda believe Precure played a large part in the establishment of their precious kingdom." The image vanished, and he folded his arms again. "If a Precure has decided to oppose us, her power could destroy everything we've worked for so far."

"Yeah, yeah, I get all that." She didn't need to be told that a bunch of glowing projectiles flying around were dangerous. What did he think she was, stupid? "So what do we do about it? 'Cause I'm sure not fighting her again."

"You have to."

" _What?!"_

"Now that we know what's happened, I need to go back and help the others come up with a long-term plan," he shrugged. "So everyone else will be busy, and you're already here…"

Another night in the wilderness with bugs crawling up her bloomers? Arsenia fumed. Her face turned a deep apple red. Hemlock winced. "Wait, wait! Let me finish."

Like hell she was gonna let him utter another word! She sent a fist flying in his direction… And he set up a small force field to block it. Unfortunately, her hand still hit it at full force. " _Ahh!"_

"Calm yourself and _listen_." He laid a hand on his shoulder, a hand she would've slapped off immediately were her own hand not out of order at the moment. "Now, where there's one Precure, others are bound to appear. If you can get rid of the first one, you might be able to eliminate the problem before it escalates."

"Are you crazy? I can't do anything against…that!" And even if she could have, why would she want to? What was the point in getting her hands dirty when other people could do it for her? Or rather, what was the point of getting her hands dirty _at all_? It bewildered her, how some people seemed to revel in walking around in filth, be it physical or magical. Disgusting.

Hemlock raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? You've only run into this person once. Take some time and actually observe your foe. You may even discover a weakness or two."

"A weakness?" Did magicians have any weaknesses? None that she had ever seen. "Well, you both use magic, right? So what's your weakness?"

The other eyebrow was raised. He let out a chuckle. "That's not for you to know." Finally, he stepped away, raising his arms in the air. The sky seemed to warp; a hole opened in midair, growing to about his size. A portal home.

Was he leaving already? But he had barely explained anything! "Wait! Don't you dare leave me here!" If she was quick, maybe she could make a run for it…

"Bye." Without another word, he stepped through his getaway door. Arsenia followed close behind…and the portal shrunk and vanished without a trace at the last second. Startled, she tripped over her own feet, falling face flat on the ground.

"Grr…" Nothing but failure after failure. What did the world have against her? Why couldn't she have the cool magical powers instead of that _nothing_? The girl wasn't even a person, she was just an experiment! It wasn't fair! Nothing was fair!

For a while, all she had the motivation to do was scream out of frustration. Screaming to no one in particular, and pounding at the ground repeatedly.

Eventually, even if she never got over it, she would have to get tired. And get tired she did. And so, for once, she gave up complaining and found the shade of a tree to sit under.

Finding Cure Basil's weakness. Where to even start? Well, she supposed Basil wasn't perfect. She had taken a few hits, even after she'd changed. The question was, why did those hit, when she'd successfully dodged the others?

Ugh, her memories of the incident were too foggy. Nothing would get done just sitting around and thinking, but it was much too late to do anything, and she was much too tired. Still, she ought to have a plan before morning, if only because she dreaded having to do this later. Maybe just sic another Toxikon onto her? Do a better job watching her fight, and maybe she'd see something. Perfect! Minimal effort, maximum reward!

…Wait. She clutched at her neck. Where was her necklace? Great. Back in the field somewhere, no doubt. That would take ages to find…

* * *

"Psst. Malini. Malini!"

Feeling someone shaking her, Malini opened her eyes and looked at her surroundings. This wasn't her room… She leapt up in alarm, assuming the worst. Why was she here? Had she been kidnapped? After yesterday's incident, she should've seen it coming. Maybe there was still time to find a way out. She scrambled out of bed, toward the door.

" _Malini?"_

Laurier's presence echoing in her head brought her back to reality. _"Laurier?"_ The rest of the day came flooding back to her. A totally different world. So many things were similar, it was easy to forget. And yet, the things that were unfamiliar still left her on edge.

"Good morning, Laurier." She gave a sheepish smile and sat back down on the bed. Wait… _"We can do this all the time?"_ She'd thought it was only possible as Basil.

Laurier giggled. _"We can, but I don't wanna do it all the time. It's kinda weird."_

" _I guess it is,"_ she admitted. And tiring to do for longer than a few seconds. Even now, it was giving her a headache. "Everything I find out just makes me more confused."

Laurier nestled into her shoulder. "Aren't we calling Atsuko today? Kayin already left, so it's fine."

She let out a chuckle. Laurier never waited long to do anything. Maybe she should've listened. So, shaking away the nervous jitters, she put her glasses back on, then dug the device out of her suitcase and turned it on.

The menu looked fairly simple - a table of icons with captions underneath. Call, calendar, notes…travel? What did travel do?

Never mind, there'd be time to figure that out later. Obviously, what she needed right now was 'call.' That option presented her with a list of names. And there was Atsuko, right at the top.

For a second, there was nothing but a dial tone and a screensaver. Even during such a short wait, she began to feel queasy again. What would Atsuko say about this?

Finally, a face came on screen. "Hello? Malini! How are you?"

"Atsuko!" Somehow, seeing a trusted face made her feel a little better. "I-I'm good! School is really nice. I have a roommate." What was she rambling on about? Why couldn't she ever get straight to the point?

"Oh, really? Is she nice?" If she could tell that something was wrong, she didn't show it.

"Yeah. She seems nice." But she had told her to be careful around even nice people. Was she going against her wishes?

"Good, good." Atsuko sighed. "Listen, I know I was a little paranoid earlier, but don't feel like you have to be afraid of everyone, okay? I-I'm sure most people on Earth are nice."

 _Earth?_ That's what this place was called? Then again, she'd never thought to ask anybody. "Of course! I was never scared at all." A lie, yes, but she didn't want to look too pathetic. "Actually, Atsuko, I wanted to talk to you about something..."

"Uh, sure. What's up?"

"Well…" How to explain, how to explain? "S-Something happened yesterday. I think I found Toxic. Or, one of them."

It took what felt like a painfully long time to wait for her answer. She saw her eyes widen, her expression fall. "On the first day?! Are you hurt?"

"No, actually…"

"Which one of them was it, anyway?"

"Um…" And she was so close to getting out what she meant to say, too. "She was around my age, I think? She had a pretty dress with a big, fluffy skirt. Black hair, spirally pigtails."

"Ugh. That little brat." She pushed a strand of hair out of her face, letting out of a huff. "Well, Arsenia's a real pain in the…butt to deal with, but you're lucky it was just her. There are plenty of worse people you could've run into."

Malini gulped. It could get worse than _that_? A wave of nausea hit her. _It's okay, it's okay. As long as we're together…_ "S-She attacked me, but…"

"But what? You said you weren't hurt, right?"

"Yeah. I wasn't." There was so much information that she had to condense down. What was a good starting point? "Atsuko, do you know anything about Precure?"

"Precure? Hm…" She paused. "That's the legend about the ancient heroes, right? Brought peace to the land or something like that. They're a big deal when you're talking about Naseyda's history." A chuckle briefly interrupted her explanation. "When I was still in training, they always brought up Precure as being the ideal warrior. That was the standard you were supposed to work toward. Personally, I think it's just a story. It all sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?" A wistful sigh, and she regained her focus. "Why do you ask, anyway?"

Oh, gee. She thought the whole thing was fake. How was she going to work off an answer like that? "But it can't just be a story. Atsuko, I…I became Precure."

These awkward silences just seemed to be getting longer and longer. "…Come on, Malini. It's one thing to lie to me, but with something like that? You can do better."

"But I'm not!" She should've known this would happen. Who would believe something so crazy? "I was hurt and sick, and then there was this light, and…I changed! I really did!"

"It's really true! I saw it, I saw all of it!" Laurier exclaimed, though it didn't seem to help much.

"Yeah, yeah. Nice joke, you guys. You got me real good."

"I…" What was she supposed to do? Malini felt her eyes water. She had to start crying in front of the toughest person in the world, on top of everything else.

Laurier pouted. "Atsuko, you meanie."

The tears were too thick to see Atsuko's face anymore, but she could still hear the voice. "Wait, Malini! I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. It was a good joke, really."

"I'll show you."

"Huh?"

"I-I'll show you I can…" But how had she done it before? She hadn't really done anything, it had just happened on its own. Wait! She still had… She dug into her pocket. "I got this after." Malini clutched the flower tightly, holding it up to the screen. "See?"

She could at least see Atsuko tilt her head slightly. "What's that? A hairpin or something?"

"Actually, I'm not really sure…" Glancing back down at it, she couldn't help fiddling with it again. The surface was impossibly smooth, like no person could have made it. Of course, it came from magic, right? Then, as her finger pressed the center, the petals suddenly spiraled outwards, revealing a metallic core. "I-It opened."

"…Malini, are you oka - "

This shining circle… A button? Thoughts came swimming into her head from nowhere… She knew what to do. "I'm gonna show you." She pressed the button.

Immediately, a bright light from before emerged from it, shining directly onto her. Her eyes widened; her hands trembled. For a moment, she forgot everything else but the light existed.

"Malini…" It only took a moment for Laurier to fall into the same trance.

Atsuko leaned into the screen. "Malini? Greens, answer me. What's going on?"

A wave of power rose within her, so quickly it was almost painful, but something kept it from coming out. She had to do something… No, she had to _say_ something. She could feel it.

"Pre…cure…" Laurier mumbled. Yes, that was it! It was a spell she needed. An incantation.

"Precure Fu…Full…"

Malini could just barely hear the tablet calling out to her. "Malini? Malini - " But she couldn't answer; her mind could only focus on one thing.

"Precure Full Permeation!"

The light appeared to explode, filling the room so that nothing else could be seen. In the distance, she heard something that sounded like a shriek, but it drifted further and further away.

And then she was somewhere else.

It was like another little world. An endless sky above her. But this sky was green, full of sparkles like stars, only even brighter. Below her, an infinite field of leafy stalks. Basil. _Have I been here before?_ Maybe only in dreams…

She realized she was floating. And naked. But her body looked almost translucent, coated from head to toe in green light. Then the scent of the leaves rose up, reached for her, enveloped her. Despite the overwhelming feeling of so much pent up magical energy, she felt so at ease.

The field rustled; leaves floated up into the sky, as if gravity had disappeared. They covered her body one by one. Maybe out of some sense of calm, she wasn't sure, she closed her eyes.

Last time, it felt like exploding from the inside, but this time the release of her power was more gentle. She felt it start then. Being reshaped, enhanced. A light tug on her scalp. The leaves shifted to certain parts of her body, weaving together to form cloth.

At some point she knew that it was done. Her eyes blinked open like she was coming out of a long sleep…

Just like that, she was home again. Or, her home on Earth, at least.

"It really worked!" And this time, she had time to take it all in. Her hands quickly stroked over her hair, then moved down to her dress - the fabric, the gemstones carefully set here and there, she couldn't identify any of them. It really did look like it was made of leaves, but it felt much sturdier.

If there was any change to her physique, she couldn't make out the difference by sight. Still the same shape - narrow at the chest, wide around the hips. When she moved, though, she could definitely feel a difference. Like the high you'd get after exercising.

Wasn't she doing something before this? Her eyes nearly popped out of her skull. "Atsuko!" She ran to grab her tablet, only to find Laurier fiddling with it.

"She hung up," Laurier grumbled. Malini's head drooped just a little. She'd been so excited to show her…

Maybe it was just a connection problem. "Should we call her again?"

"She was doing a lot of shouting. Maybe we should wait."

Shouting. Yes, she remembered a shout, or a scream, or something like that. Was it an angry shout? Why would she be mad? She had said she didn't want her fighting, but there was no going back on this.

"I thought she'd be happier…" One person's disapproval shouldn't have hurt so much. Although she was known to be oversensitive.

Laurier set the tablet aside. "Don't worry about her. I'll never be mad at you," she said with a grin.

Malini knew she was trying to help, but it did nothing to help relieve her disappointment. "I-It's not really the same thing. You're my best friend in the world, but Atsuko…" For some reason, her throat seized up whenever she tried to say the m-word. "I mean, she takes care of me. Of both of us."

If Laurier had something else to say, she didn't get the chance. Suddenly, she felt the floor beneath her feet rumbling. "Oh, no…" At least she was already Basil for this. But she could've been in a better mood.

The fairy jumped up, ready to fly out the door. "We have to hurry!"

"Wait! E-Everybody's gonna see me!" Was she supposed to keep this a secret? So many other things already were. Besides, the idea of getting that much attention made her stomach turn.

"But there's no other way out," she said with a shrug.

Or was there? Basil glanced to the open window.

Laurier's eyes widened. "Can you do that?"

"I can try." Funny how this didn't give her a problem, but the idea of being in a crowd was still unbearable. Either way, she'd already made her decision. Click the window lock to the other side, carefully open it, and…push herself through.

"Eep!" She thought she'd gotten used to the feeling of falling, but nope. Seeing the ground hurtling toward her didn't get any less scary. Of course; just falling was different from jumping, and then falling. She should've known…

Nevertheless, she landed safely on her feet. She was surprised the impact from such a great height didn't hurt more. Still, that had not been a pleasant sensation. "Um…maybe I won't do that next time?" Really, it was better to go outside first and then transform, even if it took up more time.

As she approached the forest, sure enough, there was another Toxikon rampaging its way through the woods. This time, it looked like a spiky ball. Grass? As long as it wasn't anything that could wrap around her.

And out of the forest walked Arsenia, right on cue. Basil felt a lump in her throat. The monsters didn't bother her, but Arsenia…

"Oh, Basil!" She gave the Precure a smirk. "About time you showed up."

Well, what were you supposed to say to the person that tried to kill you just hours before? Maybe a taunt, like Atsuko would - but she was never very good at coming up with things like that, and it felt wrong to tease somebody, even somebody as horrid as her.

In the end, she couldn't think of a suitable reply. So she stayed silent, while trying to maintain a determined expression. After all, she couldn't let on that she was intimidated in the slightest.

Arsenia raised an eyebrow. "Not gonna talk, huh? You disrespectful little…" Her statement was interrupted by a shake of her head. "Forget it. You're here. There's a Toxikon. You gonna fight it or what?"

Wait. Wasn't she going to try and stop her? Before she could give it any further thought, a few sharp projectiles were shot in her direction, that she only managed to dodge at the last second. The beast roared. Okay, she could give her that much; she had to fight this thing, regardless of why it was made.

Since the Toxikon was covered in these spines, she quickly figured out it would be impossible to hit directly. Then she'd have to find something to throw at it. But what? Something too small wouldn't even leave a mark. As for something too big, she wasn't sure exactly how much she was able to lift yet. Besides, here in the middle of nowhere, there weren't objects scattered around in the first place.

All the while, she had to keep avoiding spike after spike as the monster chased after her. Thinking was so hard when you constantly had something flying at you! If only she could think faster!

Forward, backward, wherever she flew, a giant blade of grass followed her. This thing could shoot in every possible direction. Except whatever part of it was on the ground while it was rolling. But there was no way she could get down there, she'd be crushed!

"Yikes!" she heard Arsenia shout as as she leapt past, rapid rounds of projectiles following close behind. "You idiot! You're supposed to hit her, not me!"

She considered the possibility of taking care of Arsenia through this seemingly endless chase. A voice in the back of her head objected. Fighting a Toxikon was one thing; that was just helping the corrupted plants return to the way they were supposed to be. But fighting an actual person…

A loud _thunk,_ like a large woodpecker, broke her train of thought. When she tried to find the source… Her collar was pinned to the side of a tree! "Oh, no…" However much she pulled away, the fabric wouldn't so much as tear. Stupid magic fabric…

And there was the Toxikon, looming above her, with nothing preventing it from impaling her right then and there.

 _Okay. Okay, Malini. Enough planning. You gotta do something now!_ To her left? School building. To her right? Arsenia, pointing and laughing. In front? The Toxikon, obviously. Behind? The tree, again, obviously.

Wait. The tree. Was it even possible for her to uproot an entire tree? Well, only one way to find out. She threw her arms behind her and lifted.

It wasn't quite as heavy as she expected, but getting it out of the ground was still a struggle. Even the magical boost in strength couldn't completely make up for her lack of any physical training. And she was running out of time, as the Toxikon began aiming its blades right at her. "Just a…little…more…"

Before she knew it, the tree uprooted all at once, nearly sending it - and her - toppling forward. She stopped herself just in time, taking a moment to catch her breath, a few beads of sweat falling down her forehead. Okay, that part was taken care of. Now to do something with it before her she lost the momentum. And before anything else could hit her.

Just as a number of sharp points came hurtling toward her, she forced the enormous tree trunk into a circular motion, destroying the 'bullets' and smashing the Toxikon against the many other trees of the forest. There was no way it was recovering from that.

That one motion seemed to take everything out of her, as both she and her improvised weapon fell to the ground. Even after all that, she couldn't quite manage to unpin herself. She hoped Laurier would come out and find her sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, someone else approached her first, that high-pitched, obnoxious laugh assaulting her ears.

"You can't even get unstuck? You're pathetic." Arsenia snickered, plucking the blade out of the tree for her.

Malini did turn a little red, but she kept quiet and stood back up. What was there to be embarrassed about? she told herself. She'd nullified the threat, and that was what really mattered.

All that was left was a final attack, but Arsenia kept blocking her way. Basil supposed she could just punch her or something, but…she hesitated.

She folded her arms. "What are you waiting for, Leafy? I'm standing right here. Or are you too weak to even fight a cute little girl?"

"Just…" At this rate, she would have, to, but something about it still felt _wrong_. "Just _move_!" Her temper getting the better of her, she simply shoved her to the side. Maybe a little too hard. But she had a job to finish.

"Precure Leafy Essence!" The giant ball of grass contentedly shrunk, deflated, and scattered across the field. A little pile of brown, dried up grass, and a tree pulled out of the ground. A part of her felt bad that all these plants might die… But they could just regrow, right? As long as their roots were intact, at least. And that wasn't the case for the grass, but it wasn't much grass anyway.

She heard Arsenia _tsk_ behind her. Hearing this girl speak just made her more and more aggravated.

"Would you look at this mess," she said in a mocking tone, walking up to face her. "But I wouldn't expect anything less from one of our own. Good work, Leafy."

The idea nearly made her wretch right then and there. _One of them!_ After Arsenia had started this mess in the first place! But she couldn't deny it was quite a scene... Her hands balled up into fists. "I-I'm not yours. I'll never be yours!"

"Hmhm… Once Toxic, always Toxic, is what they say." That smug little smirk of hers… She just wished she could block this all out. "Normally deserters are executed, but who knows? Maybe with destructive power like that, they'll let you back in. We could really use someone like you."

"I didn't destroy anything!" Okay, a few blades of grass withered and there was a tree on the ground, but… "None of this would have happened if you hadn't made another Toxikon."

"Maybe, maybe. But you didn't have to pull out that tree, you know."

Of course she'd had to. There was no way she would've been able to do any damage to the monster otherwise. Or was there? Oh, she didn't know… These fights moved too fast. Maybe there really was a better solution she missed.

Arsenia grinned. Basil only saw it of the corner of her eye, but it made her shudder all the same. "Well, then, I'll just leave you to it."

She was leaving already? She couldn't let that happen, she had to do something. Couldn't quite decide what, but _something._ "Wai- "

"Au revoir, you pitiful leaf." Once again, a puff of smoke, and she was gone. For a moment Basil could only stare at where the girl was standing just moments ago, deep in her own thoughts.

Maybe Arsenia was right. Maybe all she could do was destroy things. Although…these Toxikons sure seemed happy to be destroyed. Perhaps they were just that miserable? It hurt to think about.

The pitter-patter of little footsteps interrupted her musings. "Laurier?" She wasn't surprised it took her so long to come down. She probably took the stairs like a reasonable person. And boy, she looked about exhausted as somebody who just crossed five flights of stairs. Carrying that tablet the whole way, too. The device was bigger than her. "Are you okay?"

"F-Fine…" Laurier stopped to catch her breath. "Good thing the monster's gone. You really work fast."

Malini gave a sad smile. "Y-Yeah. Good thing." She sighed. "Laurier, does this count as killing somebody?"

"Huh? Hmm…" She didn't seem to understand the question at first. "Picking plants out of the ground isn't a big deal. You gotta do that to eat 'em."

"I know, but if it turned into a monster, that's different from just a plant." And that was hypocritical of her, wasn't it? To get rid of them when she herself had been saved such a long time ago. "I don't know, Laurier. You helped me, right? Can I help them?"

"You are." She hopped up onto Malini's shoulder. "Toxic hurts them. You get rid of what's hurting them."

It made a little more sense when she put it like that. And yet… "This tree will die soon. I uprooted it." She kneeled down, looking at the damage she'd done. "That doesn't seem like helping it."

"Well…uh…" This time, she couldn't come up with a retort. So that was it, then? They'd just have to let the tree die? Her eyes watered. _Malini, you're such a crybaby…_

"Wait, wait! You got it out, right? So you can just lift it again!"

Could she? "It was really, really hard the first time." Then again, it was better to try and fail than just give up. So if she just bent down and gripped the tree…

"Hnng…errgh!" Her biceps ached, but she was able to get it up a few inches without much effort. "Whew." She didn't feel as strong as she had started out. It felt like her power didn't want to stick. No, she had to stay Basil for just a few more minutes. "Just…gotta…get it…upright…"

Halfway there. Just a little more. And… "There!" Now it was standing again. As long as she was holding it up. But it would have to take root again to stay up. "Where did I pull it from?" She surveyed the forest and found the hole. All the way over there? There was no way she could make it that far, not already pushing herself to her limits.

And them something happened. The pressure was taken off her shoulders. "Huh?" Before her very eyes, the roots of the tree moved on their own, burrowing their past the grass into the soil below. She stepped away from the tree trunk, and it stayed in its position.

"What happened?" Basil asked, her lip hanging open. "Did I do that?"

It didn't take her long to see that it wasn't her own doing. There, still perched atop her, was Laurier, glowing a bright white for just a moment before the light faded. She gasped for breath.

"Laurier, are you okay?" Malini took the fairy into her arms before she could lose her footing. "You…you did that, didn't you?

Laurier didn't answer right away, her gaze unfocused. Malini could sense her wooziness. She shook herself out of it, her long ears swaying along with her head. "I think so," she muttered, making it sound more like a question than an answer. "Felt like what I was s'posed to do."

"Relax, relax. Don't push yourself anymore." With a pat of her head, Laurier started to drift off to sleep. A wave of exhaustion hit Malini, too. Well, she was done for the day, wasn't she? Nothing stopping her from going back to her room and sleeping for another hour or two.

She heard the faint sound of a little song. Where was that coming from? The tablet. Somebody was trying to call her. Quickly, she set Laurier down and answered the call, forgetting all about her tired state. "Hello?" Wait, nobody was supposed to see her, right? Crap, she'd really blew it this time!

"Uh, hello? Is that you, Malini?"

Malini breathed a sign of relief. It was only Atsuko. "Hehe, yeah, it's me…" Her cheeks reddened slightly. Even Atsuko seeing her like this made her a little shy.

"Wow…" There was silence between the two of them for a moment. "Is this a bad time?"

"No, no! I just finished up." She felt like she could talk about how the fight went all day…but no, that would just make her worry. The less of that she was doing, the better.

"Are you sure? You look exhausted." And to that, she could only sigh. No hiding anything from Atsuko, never. She saw through everything. "You're not hurt, are you?"

She shook her head. Sore, yes, but not hurt.

Why would no words come out? _Come on, Malini, say something. Anything!_

"I know you don't want me doing this." Her hands trembled holding the tablet. She'd hardly ever disobeyed anyone in her life. Was this really okay? Of course…this is how things had to be. "But I want to! I want to be Precure. If I can fight Toxic, then…"

 _Then maybe I can make up for what they wanted me to do_ , she thought to herself, but she couldn't bring herself to finish. Atsuko always told her not to be so hard on herself. But when half of everyone she knew wanted her gone for that very reason, how could she help it?

But this time, Atsuko didn't look upset; she seemed sympathetic, if a little nervous. "I keep telling you, Malini, you don't have to prove anything to anyone."

"I-It's not just that. I want to be a good person. Help people. Like you do." True, the way the captain of the guard helped people was usually a good deal more violent than what she was currently doing as a Precure. But the goal was the same, right?

"…I see. That's what this is about."

What sort of tone was that? If there was ever a time she wished she could read people, it was now. And to know the right thing to say.

But Atsuko continued before she could get a word in.

"You know, even if I wanted to stop you, I wouldn't be able to. All this magic stuff is kinda beyond my control. And, uh, queen's orders," she admitted sheepishly. Wait, did the queen know this was going to happen? "But if your heart is in it, who am I to say no?"

So that was a yes. A roundabout yes, but a yes either way. Truthfully, Malini hadn't been expecting it. And now here she was, caught unprepared. It took her a second or two…but eventually, a smile spread on her face.

"Thank you," was all she could say. "Thank you so much." Was she tearing up _again_? She'd have to toughen herself up if she was going to be doing this for a while.

Atsuko's serious mood vanished instantly, marking the return of her usual carefree grin. "But who said you needed my approval anyway? You're old enough to make your own choices, right?"

"Uh, y-yeah… I guess so." Malini _was_ thirteen, even if she didn't have the life experience to show for it. As long as she was here, there was nothing stopping her from doing as she pleased. "But anyway, thank you."

"It was nothin', really. Now go in and get some rest. Can't do any fighting if you're not takin' breaks."

"Of course." With the weight of her eyelids almost too much to hold back, she could tell she'd already held out for too long. Better to end the call before she collapsed. "I'll talk to you later." And she hung up.

The moment the call ended, she let go of what little grip she still had on her magic and let herself return to normal. If she let herself, she could've easily fallen asleep right where she was standing. Or wouldn't it be nice to sit under this shady tree? …But what if someone else walked over? Wouldn't she seem weird? She supposed it was better to sleep in her bed like a normal person. Even if the walk back to her room seemed _so_ long…

Nevertheless, she stumbled her way back onto campus and upstairs, keeping a tight hold on the soundly sleeping Laurier the whole way. Funny…she almost thought she heard the rustling trees whisper a _thank you_ to her as she left, but maybe the exhaustion was making her hear things?

* * *

The sight of her soft, fluffy bed made Malini sigh with relief. Without a moment's hesitation, she let herself fall face down onto her comforter. Would every outing as Precure be this draining? Having to nap a significant portion of the day could be a problem. But she couldn't bring herself to care for long. It didn't matter as long as she could take care of today.

She was just about to doze off when she felt Laurier wriggle her way out of her arms. Well, if she wanted to stay up and play, she wasn't going to stop her.

"I feel something in here," Laurier said.

 _Feel_ something? What did that mean? "Like what?" she mumbled through the covers.

The _clank_ ing from across the room answered the question for her. "That," she confirmed.

 _It's still there._ An animal in the cupboard… Was it an animal? If it was trapped in there, then it would only be right to let it out. As much as she hated to leave her bed, it would only take a few seconds. Groaning, she forced herself onto her feet into the kitchen area and opened the door, too tired to think about any potential danger.

A fuzzy ball of purple toppled out onto the floor. Goodness, that looked like quite a fall. Was it hurt? "Uhh…you okay?" Malini leaned down to get a closer look at the creature.

The animal peered up at her, none the worse for wear. Was that a flower on its head? Wait…it couldn't be…

"Is that a fairy? You mean I'm not the only one?!" Laurier vocalized Malini's thoughts perfectly. How was this possible? Did a second fairy follow them to Earth when they weren't looking? Her mind was too clouded to make sense of any of this.

And just when the mental fog was starting to clear, she heard the door open.

Kayin laid her eyes on the situation, and froze in place. Laurier remained painfully visible - no, there were _two_ fairies in full view now. Malini remained equally as speechless.

 _I've really done it now…_


	3. Lavenders Blue

Kayin had to admit, hiding a pet in her dorm room added a certain element of excitement to her life.

When she'd first applied for boarding school, it sounded like a real thrill. New scenery and new people meant plenty of new inspiration to get out of the rut she'd been in. And indeed, the inspiration did come…but then reality set in. School was school, no matter where you were. You were forced to spend most of your time in classes you had little interest in, and then an extra hour or two on top of that getting homework out of the way, so in the end of the day you only had 3-4 hours to do what you actually wanted, if you were lucky.

And the extra regulations that came with living in a dormitory meant there were no ways to get around it. Go to bed at 11, can't get up until six? How was she supposed to find any time to paint in these conditions? Well…she said there were no ways of getting around it, but that wasn't entirely true. If she was really desperate, she could always move her easel and canvas into the bathroom where the RAs couldn't see. But that wasn't an ideal solution, considering how cramped that little bathroom was.

So at least she had her own little act of rebellion in the…what in the world was he, anyway? No animal she'd ever seen before. Weird that he could talk, too. But she supposed it didn't matter. Her pet brought a nice change of pace to the boring routine. Even if he was a little troublemaker…

And from the looks of it, Caraway had gotten himself into trouble once again.

In hindsight, she should've expected this to happen once she got a roommate. Why didn't she think these things through better? Never mind that. Now the jig was up, and she had to make a decision.

"Um…" Malini began to speak up. "I-I can…"

"Don't look!"

"Huh?"

In her flustered state, all Kayin could think about was keeping her secret, secret. Damage control. There was still a chance she could fix this, right?

"Don't look, don't look!" She nearly tripped over herself dashing to the kitchen cupboards, stuffing Caraway back inside before he could protest. "You didn't see anything. Nothing to see here."

It surprised her that Malini didn't put up more resistance. Actually, she looked like she could fall asleep any minute. What had she been up to today? "But…I saw…"

"No you didn't. It's your imagination. You're dreaming." There. There was something she could work with! "Look at you. You look like you haven't slept in days. Why aren't you in bed?"

The time it took to get an answer seemed like forever. Malini gave a slow, drowsy blink and yawned. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right. Just a dream."

Good. All according to plan. What little plan there was. "Exactly. And you have no reason to stay awake another second." With that, she shoved her roommate back onto her bed - perhaps a little too forcefully. But once she was lying down, she went out like a light. Kayin let out a sigh of relief. That was much easier than she expected.

She only had a moment's peace to herself before Caraway began loudly complaining from behind the cupboard doors. Was it okay to let him out? Surely nothing could wake Malini from a sleep like that.

Her expression quickly shifted to one of annoyance as she took out her pet and plopped him onto the counter. "Do you have any idea how much you could've screwed things up?" she scolded him. "I told you to stay put while Malini's here!"

"But she's here all the time!" he whined. "I can't stay in there forever."

"We don't have a choice! Would you rather me have to give you up?" Although maybe he'd survive just fine by himself. That was how she found him, after all.

He pouted. "Well…no. But still -"

She immediately cut him off, now pacing around the kitchen. "And not even that. What if she sold you to a lab somewhere to get cut open?"

"She wouldn't. She's got one of me, too."

"What are you talking abo - " Only then did she notice another pair of beady little eyes staring at her. Slowly, she turned around to face the creature they belonged to. No, no. This was impossible. There was no way…

And yet, there it was. Whatever species Caraway belonged to, there was apparently a second one. This one was green instead of purple, and had leaves where the flowers were supposed to be, but there was no way it could be anything else. "How did I not see that?"

Seeming a bit shy, the green one flapped its "ears," clumsily flying from Malini's bed to the kitchen counter. At least, it was going to until Caraway decided to meet it halfway, spinning the flowerbud on his head like a propeller. Kayin, too baffled to interfere, observed from a distance.

The two simply looked at each other for a long time. Finally, the green one was the first to speak. "Are you really a fairy, too?"

Caraway tilted his head. " _Am_ I a fairy?"

All traces of shyness vanished as the green one smiled and giggled. "You gotta be. Look, we're like twins."

Laurier's smile looked to be infectious; it wasn't long before Caraway was smiling, too. "Kinda, huh? But you're all leafy."

"Uh, yeah, I guess that's true…" She blushed a bit, playing with one ear. "I'm Laurier. Do you have a name?"

" _Duh_. It's Caraway."

"Aww, what a cute name!"

It really said something when even the so-called eccentric one found the situation surreal. Kayin was sure she'd get used to all this, just like she had the first time. Right now, though, it wasn't coming easy. What were the odds that two of these things would just run into each other? No, _fairies,_ right?

Funny; they were far from what you'd picture upon hearing the word 'fairy.' What other mythical creatures were real, then? Mermaids? Dragons? If fairies looked like rodents, maybe dragons were like, frogs or something weird like that.

And just like that, another image formed in her head, one that made her fingers twitch in anticipation. Sure, she had like two other unfinished works still sitting around, but…they could wait a little longer, right? Better to ride the momentum of this idea before she lost it.

There was just something about a blank canvas, Kayin thought to herself as she set up her work station. Endless possibilities. Like making a gateway to another place, another world. Any world she wanted, laws of science be damned. Thought, emotion in its purest, most unfiltered form.

And today, she was in something of a _green_ mood. Maybe it was having the extra fairy around? Possibly. It didn't warrant much thought; if she was feeling green, then green it would be. Rather than waste any time with a palette, she simply grabbed a bottle of sea green, squeezed a blob of it directly onto her canvas, and went to town.

* * *

For only having been away from home for about two days, this felt like the first real meal Arsenia had eaten in ages. The meatloaf was drier than dirt and way too spicy for its own good, and the vegetables were cooked to mush, but it beat scavenging for berries any day. Why didn't she think of stealing food from students sooner? Would've saved her a lot of trouble.

So relieved was she that forgot all about table manners and started pigging out. Eating way too fast, taking bites much too large so she had to chew with her mouth open. It was okay, right? No one would see her in the middle of the woods - no one except the squirrels, anyway.

A burst of light interrupted her train of thought. She nearly choked on her food in surprise, ketchup glaze dribbling down her chin. _Talk about bad timing, Hemlock!_ Now she had mere seconds to clean herself up, wiping her face on her sleeve without thinking, and cringing when she saw the massive orange stain it left. _Who knows if that'll come out?_

Regardless of her efforts, Hemlock appeared in front of her before she could make herself even remotely presentable. Actually, forget that - she hadn't been 'presentable' since she got here. That little smirk of his just rubbed it in all the more. "Taking good care of ourselves, I see?"

She'd spent the past day being angry, but by now she'd all but angered herself out. Now she was just tired. "You know, for as often as you've been sneaking up on me, you could've just _magicked_ me up some food." As much as he bragged about his power, he never seemed to make good use of it. Why couldn't he just cast a spell so that Toxic would automatically win, instead of bothering with all this extra work?

He cleared his throat, looking a bit uncomfortable all of a sudden. "Yes, well…your father told me you need to work on being a little more independent. So I, uh, was forbidden to interfere. You understand."

Daddy was responsible for this? That couldn't be. Daddy never hesitated to give her what she wanted. Somebody else must've talked him into it, she decided. Surely he'd snap out of it once she got home. "Anyway, you're here for a reason, right?" she asked, taking one last generous bite of food before she stood up.

Back to his usual calm demeanor without missing a beat. "Indeed. You executed the plan we discussed earlier?"

"I dunno about _egg-secuting_ anything, but I did what you said." It ended up being much easier than she'd expected, too, all things considered. "Turns out Leafy has a bunch of weak points. I almost feel bad for her."

"All right, let's hear it," he said, pulling out a scroll and a glowing quill. _Oh, wow, he's getting this down in writing? This oughta be good._

"Weeeell…" She could go on about this all day. Where to even start? "During fights, she spends most of the time jumping around doing nothing. It took her like ten minutes to land a hit. So either she doesn't know the first thing about how to fight, or she's just running away like a coward."

"Yes, good, good…" Hemlock scribbled something down with fervor. "Continue."

"Okay, so there's this one spell she uses every time, right?" Quite the spell, too. Even from a distance, the weird _vibrations_ it let out always left her uneasy. "Once she's done that, she's pretty much useless. Can't do a thing. She tried to punch me and it was hilarious! She was like, way, way off."

He nodded. "Magic is a force far more powerful than the typical human. It takes some adjustment to use it without spending too much physical energy."

Ah, that explained it. So it was another amateur thing. Assuming they didn't defeat her immediately, she would grow out of both at some point. But she had one strategy she knew would always work.

"And to finish…bringing up her time in the lab _always_ freaks her out. We wouldn't even have to take her back, just threatening to do it drives her nuts. If you wanna mess her up, that'll always do the trick."

"Mm-hm." After a few more scribbles, he made the quill disappear and wrapped up the scroll. "I have to admit, you can be quite clever when you want to be, Arsenia. It's a shame you don't use that skill for something more productive."

Her proud grin turned into a scowl. "Like what, wasting your life away reading books like _you_?"

"I'd hardly call it a waste. You could stand to learn a thing of two from books, you know."

"Hmph." She crossed her arms. "I don't need to learn anything. I already know everything I need to know." Fashion and the finer things in life were her priorities. Anything else was just getting in the way. "So I guess you're leaving now? Or you could at least whip me up something decent for dinner first."

Hemlock paused in thought for a moment. "Actually…I think you've spent enough time out here. If you're not getting proper food, you're not going to last much longer." He sighed. "Fine. You can go home. I'll find someone else to take out the Precure today."

She blinked. "Are you serious?"

"Yes. Time to go home." With a wave of his hand, a portal opened behind him.

Finally. Finally! Arsenia nearly cried tears of joy. No time to waste! She didn't want to stay in this hellhole another minute. Tossing her cafeteria food to the side, she sprinted through the portal as fast as her legs could carry her.

All the while, Hemlock stayed where he was, watching her pass him by. "Not even a thank you? Should have expected as much."

* * *

Some time in the afternoon, Malini woke up.

More specifically, she woke up to a pair of fairies running across her back in the process of playing tag. "Hey, take it easy, you two!" Kayin said from across the room. At that moment, she knew she really hadn't thought her plans through. There was no passing this off as a dream now. Although when she'd tried to cover things up, she hadn't known her roommate already had experience with…fairies. Fairies. It was gonna take her a while to get used to that.

Malini watched the two of them zipping through the room. Then her gaze to the other side of the bed, where Kayin stood, a full paintbrush still in hand.

Kayin let out an awkward chuckle. How was she going to explain her way out of this one? "So, uh, I met your pet while you were asleep."

She frowned a little. "Laurier's not a pet." But then her eyes widened as she took a second look at the fairies. "Is the other one yours?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Weird how these things work out, isn't it?" This all had to be a giant coincidence, right? Or if there was really magic involved… Maybe there was something more to it? "How did you find yours, anyway?"

She bit her lip and looked away. "I, I can't remember."

"Can't remember? Why would you forget something like tha - "

"Never mind," she said, her voice trembling. Evidently, she'd stepped on a sensitive subject. Oh, well; then Kayin supposed she'd never know. Malini turned to face her again. "Um, what about you?"

How did she find Caraway, huh? "Hehe! That's a funny story, actually. So I had just gotten accepted to this school, and I was on my way to the airport…"

* * *

 _Anything else regarding the trip over here was a blur. But this part, and this part only, she remembered very well._

 _The airport had just gone through a major renovation, as she recalled. In direct contrast to the modern design of the building, the area around it was covered in flowers of all sorts. Pinks and purples and yellows and blues… Some flowerbeds even arranged to make pictures. Nothing too special, just basic things like hearts and hearts and in one case, one giant daisy made of daisies. Kayin didn't understand the purpose of that. Surely they could've come up with something a little more creative?_

 _Nevertheless, she enjoyed flower season and took the time to enjoy it before she had to get to her gate. Then one flower in particular caught her eye._

 _Rather, not a flower quite yet. Just a round bud. But it had to have been the biggest bud she'd ever seen - at least the size of a tennis ball, if not a little bigger. What kind of chemicals did people pump into flowers to make them that big? And it was gorgeous shade of pale bluish-purple, and purple just happened to be her favorite color. Immediately she was struck by its beauty, and the way it stood out amongst the hundreds of other flowers in that particular small garden._

 _There was no way she could paint anything and make it to her gate in time. Maybe just a sketch. She had time for a sketch, didn't she? Time to whip out her sketchbook and find out. It was something close to a sphere, so if she drew a circle and then worked from there…_

 _Out of the corner of her eye, she picked up movement. Wouldn't it make for an interesting picture if she could get a bug or something in the picture, too…but when she looked more closely, she saw nothing. Must've flown away. So she went back to her original spot._

 _No, wait. It was the bud itself moving, wasn't it? At first she thought it was the wind, but there wasn't even a breeze, and the other flowers were still. A few gentle sways soon turned into little twitches, then it moved back and forth frantically, digging up the soil at its sides._

 _For a moment, Kayin stared in confusion. What, was there an animal trapped in there or something? She supposed one could easily fit inside. Maybe a mouse or something like that. If it needed help getting out, she'd gladly lend a hand…if she could only get a hold of it. What a fast little bugger. "Come on, hold still!"_

 _Finally, she had a fist wrapped around the thing…oops, maybe a little too tight. But her hand felt strangely empty. Sure enough, there was nothing beneath the petals. But when she was parting them, she could've sworn she heard something squeak at her. Then was there something_ under _the soil?_

 _There was a good chance she'd get in trouble for just digging into private property, but she couldn't hold back her curiosity. As soon as one hand was in the dirt, reaching underneath, the other followed suit._

 _Huh? These didn't feel like plant roots. It sort of felt like an animal, but…right under the flower like that? There should've at least been a stem. Cautiously, she tugged whatever she was holding out from the soil._

 _And that just made her even more confused. It really was an animal! An animal with a flower on its head? Bright purple, too. No nose. No ears that she could tell. Kinda fuzzy, but not exactly furry. Actually, it almost looked like a little tattooed baby. Or not. Anything she tried to compare it to fell flat. If this animal had a name, she'd never heard of it._

 _She stared, and the fairy stared back. And then…it smiled. Okay, now that was weird. Dogs and cats kinda looked like they were smiling sometimes, but not like this. It was creepy how human and yet not human this thing was._

 _While she was in the middle of trying to figure things out, she caught a look at her wristwatch. "It's that late?! I gotta go!" Forget this creature, whatever it was. She had a flight to catch. She set the animal aside, grabbed hold of her suitcase, and dashed into the building._

 _From there, it was the usual routine. Check in, get her luggage checked, go through security. She'd been through this a million times on trips with her family; it was practically second nature. Finally, she reached her gate and had some time to relax._

 _Relax until she heard a familiar squeak nearby._

 _It couldn't be, but… She looked behind her chair, and yep, there it was. Somehow the creature had followed her all the way here. How did security not catch that? How were they_ still _not catching it?_

" _Y-You again? What are you doing here?" Then she saw what it was holding. The sketchbook. She'd left it outside, hadn't she? "You came all the way here just to bring that?"_

 _The creature smiled again, trying its best to reach up to her. Huh. Whatever the little guy was, it seemed pretty smart. "Hehe. Well, thanks, I guess." If this was how things were going, why not just go along with it? Taking the sketchbook in one hand and pencil in the other, she turned to a blank page. Now this would be something interesting to draw. "Let's see here…" It was a very round creature. Basically just a bunch of circles, right? She could sketch something so simple in just a few minutes._

" _There." She showed the animal the finished product, though she wasn't sure it could even comprehend it. "You like it?"_

 _To her surprise, the animal not only smiled, it began giggling. It could giggle, too? But that quickly became the least of her concerns. Was it just the fluorescent lights, or did this thing look a whole lot…brighter? "Hey, uh…"_

 _Not a few seconds later, something hit her, hard - so hard, her chair fell over. At the same time, an obnoxiously bright light blocked her vision. Were the two sensations related? Probably. One thing she knew for sure, whatever hit her, it didn't quite feel solid. All of a sudden, a wave of heat traveled through her body, and her head for a split second felt like it was overflowing with information._

 _She couldn't say how long the moment lasted. Probably only a second or two, though it felt much longer. When it was done, it was like nothing ever happened, besides her still being a bit on the warm side. "Ugh…" Nobody seemed to notice the wild animal walking around, but they definitely noticed her fall out of her chair. She pushed herself back up, trying not to make contact with any of the onlookers._

" _Are you okay?" a voice asked as she situated herself._

" _Yeah, yeah, I'm fine! Don't worry about me." Wait… That voice sounded familiar. No, that was impossible, right?_

 _As if to answer her thoughts, the creature hopped into her lap, making itself comfortable. "You make pretty pictures. Can you make more?"_

 _Oh, boy. The creature was talking. Was it just her, or was that bud on his head just a little more open than it was before? Forget that, how was it speaking human? "I…how are you…"_

 _It didn't have time to answer. Right then, the boarding announcement sounded over the speakers. "Shoot! I'm gonna be late!"_

 _But what to do about this strange creature? It'd be in big trouble if it tried to follow her onto the plane. And…she felt kind of attached to it now._

 _Well, it was coming on the plane either way, so she'd have to find some way to hide it. "Sorry about this." She tried her best to stuff it in her backpack, along with her sketchbook and pencil._

" _Hey!" It didn't matter how much it fought. Zipping it up muffled it somewhat. She made it just as the last people were being let on board. Phew… An odd turn of events, but she couldn't complain too much. If life handed her a free pet, she'd be stupid not to take it._

* * *

"And that's about it! I've just kept him here in the room." Wow, did that story end up being long! Where was her water bottle when you needed it? She grabbed it from off the floor and chugged, not paying any attention to the dripping paintbrush in her other hand.

Malini took a long time to respond, as if she was still process that massive infodump she just received. "Oh!" It was as if you could see the lightbulb flickering on over her head. "You…you connected! So that's how it works…"

Kayin tilted her head. "Connected? What are you talking about?" She guessed if there was an expert on the subject of fairies, it would be Malini. So many questions to ask, so little time.

"Um…" She stopped to think for a moment. "It means you always have a friend. And you get to do a lot of special things."

"Like what?"

"It's kinda hard to explain…" For a moment it looked like she was holding something back. "The plants. Laurier talks to plants. I think maybe she can control them, too? But not much."

"Oh… Haha, Caraway definitely can't do that! He just makes messes." Okay, maybe he got that from her. But still…

Her expression turned to one of concern. "I mean, do you like him?"

"Hm?" Come to think of it, she did do an awful lot of complaining about him. "Ah, sorry. I don't mean to sound like I'm mad at him. I-I guess I don't get to spend a lot of time with him, what with lessons and all…" Around that time, the fairies' little game of tag came to an end. Laurier nestled right into Malini's arms like it was second nature, but Caraway… "Hey! Careful with those!" Right into her box of paints. Just what she needed right now.

Laurier let out a giggle. "Caraway's fun. He's kinda weird, though. I don't think he talks to people much."

 _Oh, wow. Way to make me feel even worse, Laurier._ Well, what was stopping her from having some together time right now? Even if she held him for just a few minutes… Carefully, she scooped him up in one arm, trying to be gentle the way Malini was. "There. Heh, this is pretty nice, huh." It'd be nicer if he would stop squirming, though. "Aww, come on. Aren't you comfy?"

Then he saw he'd gotten a hold of a bottle of paint. "Wait, what color is this?" Crimson. _Hmm…_ It'd be a stark contrast to the greens and blues she'd been using. But wow, would that pop! "Great idea, Caraway!" Just a stripe of red along the creature's back and… "Haha, perfect!"

Malini got up to take a closer look. "What's that?"

"That's…" Good question. What was it she was painting, exactly? "It's a dragon. Or a frog. Or…I guess a little of both?" A blobby sort of creature with wet, warty skin, legs like a komodo dragon, and a tongue that extended down to the bottom on the canvas. Admittedly, this was one of her less abstract pieces, so getting the anatomy down had been kind of a pain.

"Ohh! I see."

The reaction caught Kayin off guard. Her paintings tended to be…what was the term? An acquired taste. She didn't get an immediate positive reaction like that very often. "You see? Really?"

"Uh-huh. It's one of those water dragons, right? I've seen pictures in books."

"…What kind of books?" Ugh, it would really suck if she like, subconsciously stole someone's idea. Didn't she read something with dragons in it last month?

"The zoology books. In the lib…rary…" Wait, this wasn't making any sense. Malini turned red. "I guess they don't have 'em here."

"Actually, I don't think you ever told me where you're from."

She seemed reluctant to share the information again. "N-Naseyda. You wouldn't know it. It's not… _here_."

"Here?"

"Not in this world. On Earth."

This day just kept getting weirder and weirder. And yet, at least it wasn't _boring_. This was much more interesting than something they'd teach in class. "So you're like, an alien or something? You don't look like an alien." Then again, plenty of movies had weirdly human-looking aliens, so who was she to judge?

"Um…I guess so?" She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "What's an alien supposed to look like?"

Kayin shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe like this," she said, looking to the fairy in her arms. "Something you'd never see on Earth." Something you'd never see on Earth…maybe she had to make this 'water dragon' a little more outlandish. Tentacles? Tentacles looked funny. What if the dragon's toes were tentacles. _Oh man, that's gonna be so cool looking!_ "Caraway, can you grab the cadmium yellow for me? …Caraway?"

Caraway was fast asleep in her grip, making a sound that sounded sort of like purring. She couldn't help blushing a little. "Aww…I guess he is comfy." It was nice sharing a moment together, even one as small as this.

Malini smiled. "He loves you, you know. That's why he chose you."

"I-I know," she replied, though in reality she was still trying to figure out how all of this worked. Did the room get warmer all of a sudden? Her head was spinning. Maybe that was enough learning for one day. _Back to painting, back to painting…_

There was the cadmium yellow at the bottom of the box…nearly rolled up to its nozzle. "Already? I haven't been using it that much…like, once or twice a day?" However much she tried to squeeze out of it, using all the force she could muster, she could only get a few drops at a time. " _Sigh._ This isn't gonna work."

Seeing that her friend was having a little nap, Laurier jumped to the floor and stepped in to provide the paint supply. "There are other yellows in here, too… Ooh, this one's pretty." She brought out a neon highlighter green. Maybe that could work. Certainly added to the otherworldly feel. Then again, she really needed something to bring out the red better.

"Nah, I don't think so. It's gotta be the cadmium. Not gotta work otherwise." And she'd been on a roll, too. She tossed her paintbrush in aggravation. "Welp. Guess I'm gonna have to go out into town. Thank god it's the weekend."

"The town?" Malini asked. "I've never been into the town before. What's it like?"

"Busy. Fun!" It was a wonder Kayin didn't go out more often. That's where her art really seemed to flourish. Well, that was school for you… "You can come too if you want. Big sales on school supplies this time of year."

"Oh… Oh, yeah. I was supposed to buy those, wasn't I?" Whatever had made her so tired this morning, it must not have been that. "Sure! Let's go. Laurier?"

Laurier groaned. "I don't wanna have to hide again."

"Would you mind staying here?" Kayin asked her.

"But she goes with me everywhere," Malini admitted. "She'll be so lonely if I leave her here."

Hmm, that did present a dilemma. But a solution easily presented itself. By then, she'd already reached for her polka dotted purse, sitting on her dresser. "You know, I bet she could fit here! There's plenty of room." Maybe it was a bit of a mess in there, but even if not the most comfortable option, there was still a ton of open space.

"Ah, yeah! That works!" Malini said with a smile. "Can we bring Caraway, too?"

"Eh, sure, why not?" That would be a new experience. This whole thing had gotten her craving some actual bonding time with her…fairy. There seemed to be a lot of benefits to being as close as those two were.

Into the bag Caraway went, then, and Laurier eagerly hopped in next to him. Looked cozy enough, but not too tight. Maybe they ought to take trips like this on the regular. "Uh, but Malini?"

"Yes?"

"Maybe you wanna fix your hair before we go?"

"Huh?" It took her a moment or two to look up and notice the tangled mass atop her head. Her eyes widened, and her cheeks turned a deep red. "S-Sorry, I'll go fix it."

Kayin couldn't help letting out a chuckle as her new friend scampered away. "They seem like nice people, don't they?" Who was she talking to again? Caraway, she realized. Even though he was sleeping. "Sneaky Malini, you've already gotten me into the habit."

Not that that was a bad thing - far from it. The idea of getting to know him better did excite her. For a good month now she'd had him around, and she hardly knew anything about him. Maybe it was her fault for not putting extra time aside, but the past was the past, after all.

If this fairy was her future, then she welcomed it. Whatever the full story behind it was - and there was no way she knew all of it.

* * *

What a perfect day to go outside. The sky never bluer, only a few sparse clouds present against the shining sun, just enough of a breeze to be comfortable. It reminded Malini of the last time she'd gone out of the castle, before the others had decided it was too dangerous. A pang of nostalgia hit her chest. But today wasn't the day to be homesick. Not when there were so many interesting sights to see.

Were there this many people in the entirety of Naseyda? She had her doubts. Humans of all shapes, sizes, ages… Even people younger than her; she hardly ever saw those back home. Not much in the way of other species, but she guessed that was just one of those things about this world in particular.

Not to mention the variety of shops. Fashion boutiques for every style you could imagine. Bookstores. Grocery stores. Salons. Restaurants. With so many options, how could you possibly make a decision? As much as she wanted to take in every little thing, Kayin had a set destination in mind, so it was best for her to follow along. There'd be time to come back later, right?

"Aaand here we are!" Kayin announced enthusiastically. She did just about everything with enthusiasm, from what she'd seen. "You ever been to an arts and crafts store before, Malini?"

She shook her head. "I didn't go out much back home."

"Don't worry, it's easy to find your way around. Everything's labeled and stuff." She paused to survey the unending halls. "School and office supplies are over that way," she said, pointing to the right. "I'll be on the other side of the store looking for paint if you need me."

"Oh, uh, okay!" She hadn't expected to split up so soon, but she shouldn't have been nervous over something so mundane. "And we'll meet up again after?"

"Right. We can go out for dinner if you want. I know this amazing Chinese place down the road… Ah, but you know, if you'd prefer something else…"

"Chinese sounds good." In truth, she had no idea what that was, but anything with a friend's recommendation was worth a try.

"Awesome! I'll see you in a few minutes!" And she ran off into the depths of the store.

Now that she was alone, the place seemed a little more daunting. "To the right, wasn't it?" So if she just kept walking in that direction, she'd eventually find what she needed. _Everything is fine. I have this under control._

Sure enough, toward the back of the store she came across an aisle of things like pencils and notebooks. Now how many of these did she need again? _One, two, three…_ Six notebooks, six binders, paper, pencils, a sharpener… Her arms quickly filled up and she had to stumble around to find a basket.

Was that everything? Just about. Now all that was left was to figure out where Kayin was now. Or maybe that would be bothering her. No big deal. There was plenty to look at while she was waiting anyway.

Just when she was trying to decide where to go first, she felt a familiar tap on her shoulder. "Laurier!"

Laurier grinned. "Having fun over here?"

"Yeah!" She knew that these were all very plain items, but there was just something about them… "How about you?"

"Caraway's still asleep. I got bored. And I missed you."

"Oh…that's a shame. It looked like you got along really well." To see Laurier have a friend her own size, there was no way she couldn't be happy for her. "It's wonderful, isn't it? Now we both have new friends. And another fairy, too."

She blushed. "I-I still can't believe it. I thought…"

"Me, too. But the queen said there's still a lot we don't know about fairies." Were all these mysterious a little…exciting? Usually she hated questions that couldn't be answered. But the answers _were_ out there, somewhere. They had to be.

"Hey, Malini." Laurier interrupted her thoughts. "Why didn't you tell her about Precure?"

Malini bit her lip. "I just didn't want to scare her." If she'd been told coming to Earth that she'd have to fight Toxic head-on, she certainly wouldn't have agreed to it. Probably would've just run away. But things had changed since then. "Besides, it's already a lot to try and remember. You and me knew a little about fairies to start out with. She didn't know anything."

"She seems pretty happy, though." She had a point. If Kayin were scared, they'd be able to tell, right? Or at least, Caraway would be able to tell, and he hadn't said as much. "Do you think she'll be a…"

"I don't know. I guess it must happen to all people with fairies, right?" She wasn't sure what it required besides being very close to your fairy, but if that was the important thing… "But they haven't known each other as long. And they haven't talked much."

"I know. But I can tell he cares about her a lot anyway, you know?" If anyone were to judge that sort of thing, surely it would be Laurier. "She just needs to learn to care, too. And she's a really _nice_ person!"

That was right. Precure were supposed to be _virtuous,_ right? Even if she doubted that she herself was a particularly virtuous person, she could certainly see virtue in Kayin. "She's really artistic. Is that a virtue?"

She nodded. "I know Caraway likes that about her." If he thought so, then Malini figured that was all that mattered. "I think we should tell her. Don't you think so?"

Maybe Laurier was right. Lying was wrong, right? Even if it was to make somebody feel better. "Okay. I'll tell her as soon as we meet up again." Who knew when that would be, though? For now, they still had to browse a bit to kill time. Then maybe they'd run into each other. "Laurier, is there anything you want to look at?"

"Hmm…" Her eyes settled on the center of the store, where flowers were being kept. "What are those over there?"

"I think those are fake." At least, if they were real, she'd be able to feel it. And she felt nothing from these. Neither did Laurier, evidently. "That's kinda nice, isn't it? They'll never wilt."

"Yeah, but…it's _weird_."

"It is weird, huh?" And yet, she couldn't stop herself from taking a closer look. Call it bile fascination. This world continued to be full of little surprises.

* * *

"So, uh, what's your favorite color?" What questions were you supposed to ask a fairy, anyhow? None of the normal conversation starters fit all that well. But since they were in the paint aisle…

Caraway thought for a moment before hopping onto the shelf and picking out a bottle containing a deep violet shade. "This is nice."

Of course the purple fairy would pick purple. What a stupid question. But she smiled anyway. "Ooh, I like that one, too! Let's get a bottle of that." Even if she could just mix the color at home, buying it premade couldn't hurt.

She'd only come here to buy one color, but now her basket held five, plus brushes. She sighed; this wasn't going to be cheap. Not that she was lacking in spending money, but with this on top of dinner, her parents would definitely notice. "It's okay if it's for paint, right? That falls under necessity. And dinner's for a friend, so…"

"That's always okay."

"Yeah, yeah, but Mum and Dad aren't gonna listen to a fairy." How was she going to explain all of this to her parents? _If_ she told them at all. There was no chance they'd understand something she barely understood herself.

Okay, that was it; she had to get out of here before she spent any more. Step one: find Malini. _Now, if I were a naturey hippy type, where would I be?_

As she suspected, there was her roommate in the gardening aisle. "You looking for something special to grow?" she grinned. "Not that you're gonna find it in all of this fake crap."

"I-I know that!" she replied, seeming somewhat offended. "I'm just looking."

"They have anything like this back at Nasi-wherever you're from?"

"Not really. None of the stores are anywhere near this big." Sounded like she came from the countryside. Not the big city where these big box stores popped up in every corner.

"Sounds nice for you. But I've always been a city girl." Being in the middle of nowhere would be so quiet. Too much quiet already drove her crazy!

She started to head toward the register, and Malini followed suit. "Oh, which city are you from?"

Oh boy, time to teach Earth geography to an alien. "It's called Ibadan. You, uh, you know where Nigeria is?"

The only response she got was a shake of the head.

"Okay, how about Africa?"

Shake of the head.

So they were starting from zero. Like a preschooler. But it'd be condescending to give her, like, a picture book, right? "Hey, look! Map posters!" She grabbed one out of the metal bin sitting by the registers. This was almost a little too convenient. "We'll put this up in our room and that'll help some. How's that sound?"

"O-Okay." Her eyes drifted away for a moment. "I mean, you don't have to. I can figure it out myself."

"Hey, it's your room too, right?" They wouldn't want a repeat of the situation with her _last_ roommate…but she should've been being nice just to be nice anyway. "Just consider it a favor from a friend." Not that she'd cover the cost of her school supplies, though, she thought as she stepped up to the register. That was going too far.

"Friend…" She blushed and smiled as she paid for her supplies. _Where does an alien get a credit card, anyway?_

Just how little did this girl actually 'go out?' Did she have no friends at all? Poor thing. That was just another thing she'd have to work on on top of this fairy thing… Why did her schedule have to keep filling up?

Her damper mood faded away the moment she stepped outside. Her eyes widened. She froze in place.

"Kayin, are you okay?"

"The wind…" The wind itself was nothing new. It was always around in one form or another. Nothing to remark on. So why was she so _hypersensitive_ to it today? The way it grazed her arms, her legs, her face…And the more time she spent there, the more she was drawn to it. Like she could just take off and fly away any second.

Of course, that was stupid. She'd look like some idiot if she just started running around flapping her arms in the middle of the boulevard. But it was getting really hard to resist listening to…whatever this was. Whatever it wanted her to do.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Caraway was also enjoying the breeze. His bud was spinning, but he kept in the same spot, his eyes closed, just letting the wind carry him whichever way it pleased. "C-Caraway, are you doing this?"

He only opened one eye, frowning at having his moment interrupted, but shook his head. "Nope. The wind."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know that. But _why_ the wind?" That seemed to snap her out of it long enough that she could turn her head, at least. To her surprise, Malini's eyes seemed just as wide as her own.

"I-Is this the same thing as in the forest?" Her eyes darted back and forth between her and Caraway. "So we have plants, but you have the wind?"

"Uh…I guess?" With all these new sensations, she couldn't think straight. Why was everything moving so fast? She'd just found out magic existed today, for pete's sake.

And yet, as unfamiliar as it was, she couldn't help smiling. First the first time since she'd gotten here, she felt some semblance of freedom. This was _liberating._ If she closed her eyes, it almost did feel like she was flying…but only for a few seconds. "You know what? I think I can get used to this." Her smile gradually expanded into a grin.

Caraway decided that he was finished for now, and copying Laurier, find a comfy spot on Kayin's shoulder to sit. "It's nice, right? I wish you could fly, too."

"Yeah…" she sighed wistfully. She glanced over to her side, where Malini stood. Oh, she had thatlook on her face again.

Might as well ask straight up. "Hey, Malini, I get the feeling there's something you haven't told me yet?"

It was like flipping a switch. What was barely concealed anxiety just moments ago came forward at full force. "Uh - no! I-I mean…nothing you need to know right now…" Laurier, with a little pout on her face, gave her a bit of a shove on the cheek. "Laurier, please…"

"Uh-huh. Sure. You know it'd really be better to know about these things _before_ they happened. 'Cause not knowing is freaking me out more than knowing."

"I mean, um, it's kinda…" Finally, she seemed to relent, her shoulders drooping with a sign. "I'll try to explain it, but i-it's really something else. I don't know if I have the words for it."

"As long as you try. I wouldn't have words for half of this stuff, either." Maybe in her alien language. If there was an alien language at all, considering she spoke perfect English.

"Okay. Okay." After a deep breath, she took a few steps forward, opened her mouth to speak…

…And promptly slipped on the pavement, just barely catching herself before her face hit the ground.

"Oh, geez!" Kayin ran over to help her up. "You all right?"

"Y-Yeah. I'm fine." As she stood up, she didn't see any injuries. And then she looked down and saw the source of the mishap.

"A banana peel? Are you freaking kidding me?" She thought that only happened on TV. "Stupid people throwing their trash on the street…" Well, the considerate thing to do now would be to trash it. "I'll be right back." She spotted the nearest trash can a few meters away and went to toss it. As she walked, she noticed Caraway floating along just next to her head.

And as soon as she turned around to go back…

"Yikes!" She jumped.

What was this guy doing right in her face? And what was with the creepy grin on his face? "Well, hello there," he said, not even blinking.

"Uh…hi?" Just her luck to run into a weirdo on the streets today. "Listen, can you just step out of the way for a seco - "

"Say, that's a cute little critter you got there. Mind if I take a look at it?"

What? "Yeah, I kinda do mind, actually. Please, just leave us alone." _Us._ Had she ever said that before? "Just - " If she couldn't talk this guy into leaving, she'd have to be forceful about it. With one swift motion, she tried to shove him out of the way.

Only for him to grab her wrist tightly enough that his nails dug into her skin. She winced.

"Now, now, leaving so soon?" His grin turned into a smirk, though she couldn't say that was any better. "No need to get angry. Let's talk things out."

"There's nothing to talk out!" Man, how could this twig of a guy be this strong? She'd end up dislocating her shoulder if she pulled away any harder.

"Kayin?"

Oh, thank god. A way out. "Hey look, my friend's here! Looks like I better get going _bye!_ "

The man's eyes narrowed. "Hello, Malini."

Malini's eyes widened as she took a few steps back.

That couldn't be good. Suddenly she had a lump in her throat. "Malini, do you guys know each other?"

She shook her head. Still, for her to look that freaked out, there had to be some kind of prior experience…

"Come on, why are you so nervous. I just wanted to play a little game." A _chomp_ interrupted the tension, and Kayin found her arm free again. "YOW!" There was Caraway, biting onto the man's hand for dear life. His attempts to shake him off got him nowhere.

For a moment she was touched by this display of protection. But didn't it just put him in danger? She didn't have time to dwell on it, as next, Malini was the one to grab her. "Kayin, you have to get out of here!"

Quickly, she pried Caraway away from the stranger before they started running. "Wait, just me? What about you?"

"I-I'll be okay. You're the important thing." She must've been crazy. Lord knew what this guy was planning to do. Maybe it was just her naivete. Country girl and all.

Finally she led her to an alley as a hiding spot - no, didn't that just make this worse? They should've been somewhere with as many people around as possible. Once Kayin could gather her bearings, she spoke her mind "There's no way I'm letting that guy lay a finger on you! Come on, we can go somewhere safer than this."

"No." She stepped out to where the light hit her, holding her fairy in her arms, looking out at the town ahead. "As long as Laurier's with me, he can't hurt me."

"What're you talking about?"

Another deep breath. "Kayin…this is what I wanted to tell you." She took something that looked like a flower out of her pocket and opened it up. It started glowing brighter than any electronic she remembered seeing. Something about that light…why did she feel so strange?

"Precure Full Permeation!"

As soon as Malini shouted that, the light multiplied twofold, fivefold, ten…and it almost looked like she was absorbed into it. Okay, maybe now it was time to start freaking out. " _Malini?!_ " She tried to get closer, but it was too bright for her eyes to handle. So she clenched them shut. And yet, the heat, the force of it alone was overwhelming.

She felt Caraway trying to wriggle out of her arms. "No!" She held him back. Was this dangerous? She wasn't sure. She couldn't deny there was something appealing to it…

But when she tried to reach into the light, her hand went straight through. Was Malini just…gone?

At some point or another - who could keep track of time anymore? - the light started to fade. And with it, Malini reappeared where she had been standing just moments ago. Except…

"You're not…Malini?"

It sort of looked like her, but the hair, the posture, the _radiance_ … And yet, when the figure looked over her shoulder, there was no one else that face could belong to.

'Malini' blushed, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. "I guess it doesn't seem like it, huh? If you want, you can call me Cure Basil when…well, when I do this." She turned around to release Laurier from her grip; the fairy hopped down contentedly, as if they'd done this a million times before. "Laurier, you make sure they stay safe, okay? I gotta go."

Following that, she crouched, and then she leapt. Past the tops of the buildings, higher than was physically possible for any normal human being. "Whoa…" Kayin squeaked out. Did this mean she was supposed to do that, too? She couldn't wrap her head around any of this.

"Kayin, are you okay?" A little voice and the flapping of leaves entered one ear.

"Laurier…" Was there an answer to that question that wouldn't take an hour? "I-I don't know yet." On the surface, there was apprehension, of course. But beneath that…didn't this excite her just a little? "Am I supposed to help her?" Caraway seemed eager to follow her out, too, from the way he was squirming.

"Umm…I dunno. I dunno how Malini an' me did it the first time, so how would you guys do it?"

The longer she stood there, the more pathetic she felt. If she had at least a portion of that power, why wasn't she putting it to good use? It didn't take her long to come to a decision. "I'm going."

"What?"

Without a second thought, she dashed out of her hiding spot into the open.

"Wait! You're not ready!" she heard Laurier shout from behind, but she didn't care. If she kept hiding like a coward, she was never going to be ready. But as soon as she entered the plaza, she stopped in her tracks.

"Oh, man."

Was that seriously a giant banana peel? With eyes? And she thought the day couldn't have gotten any weirder. It crawled across the ground like an octopus as shoppers frantically filled the stores trying to escape it. One detail she caught right away was the rubbery texture of its…was it appropriate to call it skin? Everything that hit it bounced off like it was a trampoline.

At the other corner of the plaza, she spotted Malini - Cure Basil? - in a crouching position. It wasn't hard to figure out what she was attempting. If you couldn't dent the outside, then your best bet was hitting the inside, right? Like a starfish.

And yet, the moment she leapt in for an opening, the monster simply swatted her away, sending her flying into the side of a building. _Ooh, that had to hurt._

Maybe flipping it over would do the trick. But to have any chance of that, the monster couldn't be paying attention. Kayin smirked. Time to do what she did best: draw attention to herself.

"Hey, banana-man!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, so loud it hurt her throat. "Look over here!"

Just as she planned, the monster's eyes shifted away from Basil, and it immediately started chasing after her. Her heart skipped a beat. _Shit, now there's a giant monster that smells like bananas on my tail._ Now all she could do was _run!_

She hoped Basil got the gist of the plan, because there was no way she could shout at that volume again. Oh, god, was this thing fast! How long was she gonna be able to keep this up? All the while, Caraway was kicking up a ruckus in her arms. Why did he always have to try to go right toward the danger?

Finally, just when she felt like her legs would give out, she heard a loud _thud_ behind her. She slid to a stop and saw the monster toppled over onto its side, its inner core staring her down. This sort of reminded her of those art symbolism lessons the other week… _Ew, get your mind out of the gutter, Kayin._ Basil climbed to the top of one segment of peel, giving her friend a smile.

Kayin couldn't help grinning back. "You did it!" A pause. "So now what do we do?"

"I have to cast a spell on it." She rubbed her hands together and they began to glow a bright green.

But only a few seconds later, a bright blue light started to emerge from the monster's center. "Uh, Malini, are you doing this?"

"N-No…" The brighter the light got, the hotter it got, until it was near unbearable… Malini's eyes widened. "Move!"

Before she had a chance to react, the light exploded into a full-on laser beam. She had no time to do anything but close her eyes and brace herself…

Until suddenly, she fell to the ground.

"Ugh…" Her knees were a little scraped up, but otherwise, no pain. Why wasn't she on fire? Or at least covered in burns. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a speck of purple.

"Oh, god! Caraway!"

The fairy lay on the ground, his fur charred, his eyes tightly clenched shut. "Caraway, please get up." Kayin shook him, panic in her voice. Upon looking more closely, she saw that somehow, by some miracle, his flowerbud was completely undamaged. Finally, he just barely opened his eyes. "Oh, thank god."

It was at that point that Laurier caught up with the pair. She descended upon the spot where Caraway rested, her brow furrowed in concern. "He's hurt. What happened?"

"I-I dunno. There was this laser and something pushed me and…"

Slowly but surely, Caraway got back onto his feet. Laurier's eyes widened as she looked at him. "You didn't…"

Caraway simply smiled and blushed - though it was hard to see the blush through all the ashy buildup - looking down at the ground. His gaze then drifted up to Kayin. "Kayin…" With some difficulty, she walked over and nuzzled her forehead.

No way. He'd have to have been crazy to do something like that. "You…you took that hit for me?" Before she knew it, one tear was streaming down her cheek, then another. "You can't do that! "Y-You're too tiny and cute! I should be protecting you, not the other way around!"

In response, he simply shook his head. "I love you."

That did it. A tear here and there became full blown sobbing. In one swift motion, she pulled him in for a tight embrace. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry I never paid attention to you. I'm sorry I locked you in the cupboard. I'm sorry…I'm sorry I couldn't help you…"

As the seconds passed by, she started feeling warmer than usual. At first she thought it was just her crying so hard, but…no, this was different. Different than anything she could remember ever feeling. Soon her eyelids did nothing to block out a shining white light. "Huh…?"

When she opened them, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Not only had Caraway's injuries all disappeared, he was glowing so brightly as to nearly be reduced to a silhouette. And just as bright was the light coming from her chest - her heart? - growing brighter by the second and spread across the rest of her body.

Gradually, she didn't feel so powerless anymore. In fact, all she could feel was a tremendous strength, and confidence - the confidence to accomplish the impossible. "This…this is it, isn't it?"

So this was her future. A smile spread across her face. She closed her eyes, and she accepted it.

"…Kayin!"

Some time later - funny how magic always made her lose track of time - she emerged all her staring at her. Basil in wonder, Laurier in jaw-dropped amazement, and Caraway with a proud, goofy grin. She took a brief glance down at herself. It had really happened! She was… _a Precure._ The word came to her from nowhere. _A Precure!_ It wasn't long before she was grinning from ear to ear, too, overcome with glee.

Her smile must've been contagious, because now Basil was smiling, too. "You really did it!" She took a break from fighting the monster to give her friend a hug. "Um, what should I call you?"

Good question. What _was_ her name now? "Uhh…" Her nose caught a whiff of lavender. Okay, more than a whiff. The scent was everywhere. _Lavender blossoms…_ "Oh, oh! I know!" She took a breath and posed - in her joy, she just couldn't help it.

"A floral, sacred fragrance that inspires the soul - Cure Lavender!"


	4. Chow Mein and Conversation

This had to be some kind of elaborate dream. Surely Kayin had dozed off in the bathroom again and was in the middle of one of those dreams you only got after keeping yourself awake for twenty hours straight.

No, it couldn't be. This all felt so real. It felt too good to be true, and yet she knew in her heart that she stood face to face with reality. Every beat of her heart sent boundless energy torrenting through her. Without realizing it, she let out a laugh of overwhelming, uncontainable joy. Did she sound crazy? _Who cares? I'm Cure Lavender! Cure Lavender!_ She'd never get tired of hearing that name. How could something so ridiculous sound more real than her _real_ name? _A Precure! A Precure…_ What was a Precure, anyway?

Her train of thought was interrupted by a noisemaker blown right into her face and confetti sprinkled into her hair…oh, her hair was covered. Never mind. As soon as her eyes met with the person responsible, her magical high turned into blind rage.

"You again!" What a creep! She threw a fist in his direction, only for him to catch it with one hand like it was nothing. "Eep." But that only deterred her for a second, as she continued flailing her free limbs at him, hoping something would land a hit.

The man smirked. "What, I help celebrate your debut and this is how you thank me?" He let out a laugh - god, even his laugh made her shudder. "Anyway, your aim is off. You're supposed to be fighting the banana, remember?"

" _Pfft!_ Fat chance! Not when I have you right he - " she said, before a brown, bruised, fruity tentacle throttled her from the left. She didn't have a moment to react before she slammed into the asphalt lining the ground, bringing up a few decent-sized chunks of it with her.

"Ow…" Shouldn't this have hurt more? Whatever scrapes she saw getting up had already scabbed up. "Huh. Magic." Made it easy. Well, time to get to it. They just had to flip it over again, right? Speaking of which, where was her teammate now, anyway? "Basil!" Or was it Malini? No, no, definitely Basil. "Basil! Could use a little help here."

Another loud _thud_ shook the ground, answering her call. There before her eyes laid the Toxikon, squirming around on its back like a crab stranded on the beach. _Why do I keep comparing this thing to fish?_ Of course, only a deep-sea creature could look so bizarre.

"Oh. Looks like you already took care of it." Waiting for the peel to position itself just right, she managed to hop up and grab a limb, climbing up on top of it. Her footing stumbled. "Whoa. Maybe we oughta pin this thing down before we get rid of it, huh?"

Basil's head peeked out from the other side of the creature, just barely hanging on to the opposite tentacle. "Haha, yeah. That might be a good idea. B-But how are we gonna do that, exactly?"

"Hm…" Good question. What would be heavy enough to weigh down something like this? Not much here besides rows and rows of stores.

And then something started to feel…how could she explain it? Just _off_. A sense of dread, like something terrible could happen at any moment. Where was this just minutes earlier, when she needed it? And then a growing blue light in the corner of her vision alerted her to the problem.

 _Not again._ "Basil!"

At this rate, she had only a few seconds to act. Without a moment's hesitation, she jumped into action, grabbing her friend off the monster and away from the blast with not even a fraction of a moment to spare.

She felt Basil holding onto her arms for dear life. "Uh…Lavender?"

"Thank God you're okay. Great timing, right?" she replied with a chuckle. She kept expecting either one of them to hit the ground, yet seconds has passed and nothing. Confused, she looked around. And found herself several meters off the ground.

"Yikes!" Her body didn't know how to react to the revelation. On instinct, she started flailing her arms and legs around, even knowing there was nothing close enough to grab onto. And nearly losing her grip on her friend in the process. She doubled down, gripping Basil's wrists perhaps a bit too tightly. "Hehe. Oh, boy. That's new."

And yet, the initial jitters soon gave way to wonder. "Wait, so I can fly?" Hadn't she always dreamed of this? Drifting like leaves in the breeze. "I can fly. Haha! I'm flying! Woohoo!"

Could she take herself higher? The mere thought propelled her upwards, well over the tops of the buildings. "Whoa, whoa! Stop now." And she stopped. Okay, so she knew how to go _up_. How about to the right? She jerked to the side. _Left._ Other side. _Uh, let's try a diagonal._ She suddenly plummeted down a couple meters or so at an odd angle, propelling her stomach into her throat. "Stop!" And she came to a rough, sudden stop. _Gotta be more specific. Got it._

She felt the grip on her arms loosen, and saw that Basil looked a bit pale. "Sorry! I'll get you back down." She could do this, right? _Down._ They both began freefalling. "Slower, slower!" Gradually their descent decelerated. "Good, good. Gentle…" Now they were working with something reasonable. The view was really nice once you slowed down to see it. No people out what with this monster running wild, but the buildings looked like little dollhouses from so high up. Plus the little trees and rocks that decorated the sidewalk…

Come to think of it, those were pretty big rocks. Might come in handy.

"I have an idea," she announced as they both landed. Just as she was about to explain, a laser beam just barely missed them, the Toxikon wildly squirming every which way. "No time to talk. Just follow my lead!"

Lavender lifted the first boulder she laid eyes on, and soon Basil followed suit. Whew, heavier than it looked. Perfect! "If this thing would just stay still for two seconds!" Finally, one peel got into a position where she could pin it down. Rinse, repeat. Another boulder, another limb. Just as she thought, there was no way for the Toxikon to move now, and it could only shoot straight upwards.

Basil smiled. "That was a good idea. Good work, Lavender."

"Aww…" She blushed a bit. "Well, Basil, you wanna take care of it now?"

"Sure." She stepped forward...and the strange man grabbed at her shoulder and pulled her away.

"Hey!" When she tried to chase after them, she found any trace of them was gone. They couldn't have just disappeared, could they? But anything could happen when magic existed and she herself could use it. Barely.

Maybe Caraway heard her thoughts, because before she knew it, he landed on her shoulder, Laurier flying not far behind. "That way," Laurier said, flying into an alleyway.

Lavender briefly glanced back at the Toxikon, still struggling. _Forget about that. Your friend is the priority._ She followed.

She didn't bother to stop and see what the guy was up to. Whatever it was, it couldn't be anything good. Wasn't this the exact same alley she and Malini stood in before? Never mind. The moment she caught sight of her opponent, she charged at him, her fist colliding with his jaw.

"Basil!" Her first instinct was to shield her from any further attack. The fairies remained close by. "Basil, are you okay?" she asked, looking over her shoulder. Basil against a wall staring into space; the way here eyes were glazed over made her shiver. Eventually she did look up at her, but she didn't show any signs of recognition.

Oh, man. It was worse than she thought. She grabbed a hold of the man by the shirt collar. "What the hell did you do to her?"

He chuckled. What a skeevy little… "Come on, I wouldn't stoop _that_ low. We just talked. Isn't that right, Malini?" Basil didn't answer. She didn't seem to hear either of them. "Malini says yes."

"Liar." She tossed him against the wall. "Get outta here and leave us alone, creep."

"I have a name, you know! It's Morel." He stretched out a hand. "Nice to meet you?"

"Go away!" She swatted his hand.

His demeanor didn't change in the slightest. Did this guy have a smile permanently etched onto his face? "Funny thing about that. I'm not allowed to leave until you get rid of the Toxikon," he explained with a shrug. "So…"

"Ugh!" This weirdo and his tricks. Lavender glanced back at Malini. There was no way she could just leave her here. Who knew what crazy stuff he might pull once she stepped away?

Laurier flew up and gently nudged her cheek. "We'll watch her. You go ahead."

"Seriously?" A couple of fairies wouldn't stand a chance if something went wrong. But if there was an opening… "All right. Be careful, you two." With that, she dashed back out into the open. _Better make this quick._

Part of her was surprised her little trap hadn't broken down by this point. Basil said you had to cast a spell on one of these things, right? What sort of spell would work? As if to answer, an incantation came to her, and she felt a sudden charge of magic. _Worth a shot_.

"Precure Floral Aroma!" Her palms released a flurry of flower petals that descended onto the Toxikon like a gentle rain. It closed its eyes and appeared to fall asleep. Its limbs abruptly retracted from the rocks holding them down as it reverted into a normal banana peel. "Huh. That was easy."

Being picky about this sort of thing, she made sure to grab the peel and toss it in a trash bin before she came back. "All right, Morty or whatever your name was, time to… Huh?"

Gone. Gone without a trace. "Oh, for the love of…!" She kicked the wall. Malini was Malini again, but at least she looked to be a little more lucid. "Malini! What happened?"

Malini bit her lip and looked away. "H-He said…he said he'd kill you if I didn't go back with him…"

 _Ouch._ Not quite as bad a deed as she'd assumed, but still pretty horrible. "Hey, you know I can hold my own. I got rid of the monster for ya, didn't I?"

"You don't know!" she cried, her voice shaking. "You think that's the worse they can do? They can…" She clenched her eyes shut and grasped at her temples as if thinking really hard. Laurier hopped up nuzzled her cheek, and that seemed to get rid of the pain. "You, you don't know. _I_ don't know. I don't know anything."

"Okay, okay. I trust you." How did she keep bringing up topics that made her all emotional like this? She laid her hands on her teammate's shoulders. "Hey. Are you okay?"

Malini gave a forced little smile. "Yeah. I-I'm fine." That didn't sound fine, but pressing the issue wasn't going to help any.

"Good. Now that we're done - " Her own yawn cut her off as her magical costuming vanished as well. "Oh, would ya look at that," she said mid-yawn. Wow, was she tired all of a sudden. Like coming down from a sugar high. "Anyway, it's dinnertime. Chinese still sound good?"

She nodded without another word. A small step, but one in the right direction.

Just when Kayin thought she'd started to figure everything out, all the answers only created more questions. First of all, who were these creeps they were fighting against? And Malini herself continued to be an enigma. A good friend wouldn't want to cause any distress, she told herself, but at the same time, her curiosity was only barely contained.

Perhaps all of this would make good dinner conversation. Or no, that'd be super uncomfortable. Maybe wait 'til tomorrow morning, at least. In the meantime, she felt starving in addition to being wiped out. _Chicken chow mein, here I come!_

* * *

Everything had been going so well lately, Malini thought to herself. She had a new friend, a new purpose, and a confidence she'd never been able to find in the palace walls. Truly she'd made progress. And today, it all had to come crashing down again.

What was the word for the feeling of retreating into her own mind? She failed to pick it out from the fog clouding her thoughts. How could that happen to her, even as Basil? Wasn't a Precure supposed to be tougher than that? And yet, Lavender carried out all the work today. Maybe her teammate was stronger than she could ever be.

Laurier, perched on her shoulder as usual, gave her an affectionate nuzzle, and helped her out of her stupor just enough. Perhaps Kayin was right - filling her stomach could help her feel better. Nothing would improve just by sitting around and dwelling on it, right? _Don't just think, do something!_ Atsuko's voice echoed in her head.

Unfortunately, she failed to notice the skateboarding pedestrian heading right into her path before a head-on collision took place. Down Malini fell to the ground again with the weight of the other person against her, catching herself just before her head hit the pavement. The other girl propped herself up above her before they could collide again. _Oh, no._ Wasn't this the same girl she ran into the other day?

Her expression shifted to one of anger. Malini winced.

"You again? I thought I told you to be more careful."

"I…" She backed away, hoping to avoid confrontation. "I just spaced out, is all."

She groaned. "Dumbass, you can't just space out in the middle of a crowded street. What if there was a car comin' at you?"

"I haven't seen any cars at all."

"Delivery trucks come through here all the time. You would've been toast!" She grabbed her by the shoulders. "Think for five seconds, would ya?"

"I, I'm sorry!" Whatever she didn't, she couldn't cry in front of a stranger. "I didn't mean to…"

After all that, the other girl fell oddly silent. Her grip loosened. "No, no…" She took a step or two backwards. " _I'm_ sorry. I shouldn't be freaking out on you like this. Just, uh…" She sighed. "Look, I'm not a talkative person, okay?"

Malini wiped her tears onto her sleeve, trying to put on a brave face. The other person didn't seem quite so scary when she wasn't yelling in her face. "It's okay. Me neither."

"What I wanna say is… You need to be more careful." Her expression turned serious. "Things might look nice, but there's always danger where you least expect it. Protect yourself above everything and everyone else, or you won't have a self to protect."

Her eyes widened. "Oh…" She didn't know what to say. Wasn't that the opposite of what everyone else told her? Naseyda ran on selflessness. Everyone looked out for each other. That was what being a good person was all about, right?

"I…" But the moment she looked up, the other girl was already making her way back into the crowd. "Oh. B-Bye."

Seemed like a nice person. Or was she? Something about her still gave her the creeps. Then again, most people still gave her the jitters. She could think back to a time when she was too scared to say a word to anyone but Laurier. When it really seemed true that she couldn't trust anyone. Atsuko could be a little rough around the edges, too. What a surprise that she ended up being as friendly as she was now.

Malini felt a pang in her chest. _Everyone I trust is back home…_

" _I'm still here, Malini."_

She let out a little smile hearing Laurier's voice. _"I know."_ And yet, she couldn't quite ignore this lingering sensation of loneliness, insecurity. It was almost like being in a little box that you couldn't break out of. Watching big, happy groups go by, wondering how to find her way out and hop in, wondering whether she even should. But that's what the queen wanted from her, right? To make friends?

"Come on, slowpoke. I'm not getting any less hungry here!"

"Kayin!" She spotted her roommate several feet ahead. That's right; they were on their way to dinner, weren't they? "Sorry. I'm coming," she shouted back, running to catch up.

If her only other friend was this one person, surely that was a good enough start for now.

And yet…

* * *

The sweet scent of chicken and hoisin sauce kept Kayin going. Without food motivating her, she knew she'd simply fall asleep in the middle of the street. But food. Food was fuel. With any luck, some fuel would keep her going a little longer. The sky was already darkening. No point in going out to buy paint if she didn't get the chance to use any of it today.

Still, for once thoughts of her art remained on the backburner; right now she could only think about dinner. "I come here all the time," she explained to Malini, who followed just behind. "It's not fine dining or anything, but sometimes you just need junk, y'know?"

"Um, yeah?" Hard to get more than a word or two out of this girl at a time. She had looked so cool as a Precure, like something more than human, semi-divine. But just hanging out like this, it was almost like it never happened. Or maybe she was just tired, too.

"You'll see once we sit down and eat. This stuff's addictive." Unable to wait any longer, she strutted ahead, pushing the door wide open and looking over the crowded restaurant. Inside, the smell was so potent she nearly drooled. Malini started fidgeting as soon as they got in. "Hey, don't worry. The noise is part of the fun, right?"

"Y-Yes. Of course," she replied with some hesitation. It'd be too hard to find a seat in any other place at this time of day. But they could choose a quieter place next time, anyhow. Although a quiet restaurant usually meant bad food.

It didn't take long for a waiter to bring them to their table. The chatter echoed around them even louder in the center of the establishment. It didn't bother Kayin at all, but Malini cupped her hands tightly around her ears. Maybe starting a conversation of their own would distract her.

"So, um, " she started, taking a quick glance at the menu. "What kind of stuff did you eat back home, anyway?"

"What?" she shouted over the barrage of noise.

"I said _what did you eat at home?_ " she repeated, maybe a bit too loudly, as Malini shuddered and covered her ears again. "Sorry."

"It's okay. Um, all kinds of things. Everybody had a favorite. Pastas and barbecue and soups and salads…"

"So do you have a favorite?"

It took her a second of thought. "I like cinnamon rolls," she said with a smile.

"Ooh, a sweet tooth. Somehow I'm not surprised." Actually, she'd expected something like radioactive alien goop. "As for me… Hmm. Chinese is great and all. And Lebanese and Italian and Korean barbecue and burgers and… Hah, guess I'm not too picky. But of course, nothing beats Mum's cooking!" All this talk of food just made her stomach feel that much more empty. But once she got started, she couldn't stop. "Best jollof in the world. I don't care what the newspaper critics say."

Her eyes widened. "Hey, I've had that."

"Seriously?" She didn't quite understand how they had Nigerian food on another planet, or any kind of Earth food for that matter. But if magic was real and they were both superheroes, that was the last question to ask. "You like it? I mean, really, anybody who hates it is nuts."

"Uh-huh." She nodded. "I like it. But it's not really my favorite."

"Huh. Different strokes, different folks." She chuckled. "Back at my home, they called me the weird one. Brother hangs out with Dad, mother hangs out with Mum, and I've always kinda done whatever. But there are a ton of weird people here! I actually have to put effort into standing out."

"There sure are a lot of people." Now she looked to be burying her face in the menu to block out the crowds.

Was it really that big a problem? It had already been a couple days; that was plenty of time to get used to it, right? "Well, um, they're not all strangers. A lot of workers and stuff, but I see people from school come here all the time." At that time, she caught someone out of the corner of her eye being seated just next to them. "Hey! Qingbo!"

You could pick Qingbo out of any crowd. Bedazzled glasses, gelled hair. She'd dyed it a frosty blue since Kayin last saw her. Her classmate looked her way and gave a friendly wave in return. "Kayin! How you doing?"

"Eh, okay, I guess? It's been kind of a strange day. Like, stranger than usual." Oh, no. This fairy had to entrust the superpowers to the person who couldn't keep a secret to save her life. "So what brings you here? I thought you said this place tasted like sweaty old socks."

"It still does. But it was the only place I could get a seat," she said with a shrug. "But never mind. Did you see what freakin' happened out there? What the hell was that thing?"

For a moment, all she could let out was an awkward chuckle. "Hehe. Yeah, I dunno. Freaky stuff, right?"

"I'm so gonna sculpt that tomorrow." She pounded a fist on the table.

Her laugh abruptly became genuine; she let out a snort. "Not if I paint it first."

"Yeah, and what are you on now? Half-finished painting number seven?"

"Hey, they'll get done. E-Eventually."

She stopped to think for a moment. "You know, I think I saw something else out there, too."

Kayin's expression stiffened. "Like what?"

"I thought everybody had already escaped, but there was these girls." Her gaze became a little wistful as she rested her chin on her hands. "One in all green, the other in all purple. Maybe I was seeing things, but...they had this sort of glow to 'em. I've never seen anything like it. Then again, after what happened today, I guess I can believe anything."

Maybe the grin she responded with was overkill. _Cover for yourself, Kayin, dammit!_ "Gee, I-I dunno! I didn't see anything like that. You got dibs on that one."

To her relief, Qingbo simply smiled. _Thank god. That was easier than I thought._ "Actually, that's not a bad idea. I wish I had gotten a better look at their faces."

For both their sakes, she hoped she never managed to. _Malini!_ Her roommate hadn't said a word through all of this. Glancing over in her direction, she didn't look to be taking to this conversation well, desperately hiding her face behind her menu. Time to change the subject. "Hey, Qingbo. Have you met my new roommate yet?" She gently pulled Malini's menu away from her and gave her a wink, hoping to get some kind of communication going.

"Oh, no, I haven't! Her name was Midori, right? Doesn't look like much of a Midori."

Malini's face turned bright red. She instinctively looked away, but seemed to realize she had to say _something_. "M-Malini Midori," she stammered, trying to smile. "Nice to meet you."

"Same here. So where you from, Malini?"

"Uh…" She took a while to come up with an answer. "India! India. G-Gujarat?"

She nodded. "I figured. We get a lot of Indian students. I guess for the prestige of this school and all that."

Truthfully, that hadn't even been a factor in Kayin choosing to attend. She just thought the town looked pretty. But that wasn't important right now. "You don't know a lick of geography, but you know where freaking Gujarat is?" she whispered to Malini.

Malini looked away. "I had to have a cover story ready for when I got here. We went over it a thousand times."

"Now that you mention it, who sent you here, anyway?"

"The queen."

"The queen?! The queen of Nasida?" she answered, not realizing her voice picking up.

"Naseyda," she whispered as quietly as possible.

"Right, right. Man, I guess you're a really important person." A waitress arrived to take their order, momentarily distracting her from their conversation.

"I guess so? I don't feel important." So deep in thought was she that the waitress' approach caught her off-guard. Evidently she hadn't bothered to make a choice up to now. She glanced back at the menu and picked something at random.

Qingbo ordered next, then the waitress left and it became strangely quiet for a while. _Maybe now wasn't the best time to start whispering._ It looked like her friend hadn't heard any of it, but there was no way to be sure.

On cue, Qingbo, picked up the conversation again. "Kayin, you think you're gonna try art club again this year?"

Oh, _that._ That was almost worse to talk about. "I dunno," she whined. "You know how snobby some of those people can be."

She chuckled. "Why do you let them bother you? I see you go out in these crazy fashions all the time, but as soon as it's about your paintings…"

"It's different, okay? Lay off." Their waitress set their drinks on the table, prompting her to take a stubborn slurp of hers.

"All right, all right. Forget it, then," she shrugged. "What about you, Malini? Any clubs you have your eye on?"

"Clubs?" She gave an absentminded blink.

"Yeah, you know. Like, do you have any hobbies? Career goals?"

"Hobbies." The time it took her to answer struck Kayin as strange. Did she really not have any hobbies at all? "I like reading, I guess."

"Perfect! I hear the school book club's really popular this year. Although some of the books they pick out…eh, how do I say it? They're not very good. Seems like the prez just picks 'em 'cause they're popular."

"Qingbo, you are such a hipster," Kayin said.

"I just know what I like," she replied with a smirk. "Anyway, don't let me keep you away from it. I'm sure you'd enjoy something like that."

"O-Okay," Malini said, although she still sounded unsure of herself.

At that point, the food arrived. Kayin and Qingbo kept up a lively chat as they ate, but Malini only said anything when prompted. _Not much of a talker, is she?_ Even now, she stumbled across bits and pieces of new information about her friend. And yet, so much was still a mystery. They were both Precure now. There was nothing to hide anymore, right? _So why is she telling me so little?_

She'd kept the whole Precure thing from her until the last minute, she supposed. 'Didn't want to scare you,' she had said. Was that what it was all about, then? Even if it felt scary at first, now she found herself more excited than anything. This made her somebody _special,_ right? Besides Malini - but still, there were only two of them in the whole world. That she knew of, anyway. The thought occurred to her that there couldn't be something even scarier that she didn't know yet. Malini sure seemed to scare easily.

Before she knew it, the food was finished and Qingbo took her leave. "Where are you going in such a hurry?" she asked.

"Gotta get to work while the inspiration's still fresh. Wouldn't you do the same?"

"Ah, right, right!" How could she forget? So much on her mind now. "Just gotta sign my check… Hehe. There." A shame her handwriting was such a mess, but at least it made her signature distinct. "Malini, you ready to go?"

Malini nodded without uttering a word. Even this late in the evening, the restaurant still bustled with activity. "Look, sorry I picked one of the busiest joints in town, okay? The sooner we get home, the sooner it'll quiet down."

"Right," she muttered, her tone giving the impression that her mind was miles away. _What does she think about all the time?_ Kayin wondered to herself.

And yet, as they both walked back out onto the street, she found herself swimming in her own thoughts so much that she forgot to ask.

* * *

"Haha! Take that, alien scum!"

The flashing colors of the arcade cabinet's screen acted like strobe lights against Morel's face. Who'd have thought a little town like this would have a retro arcade? In the moment, only the fight against these eight-bit aliens existed; Precure was the furthest thing from his mind.

Not that Precure would be any trouble to handle if they did rear their ugly heads again. Sure, there may have been two of them now. But they were both so clumsy that he didn't have to put single ounce of effort into subduing them. Especially the green one. He knew a neurotic mess when he saw one. He supposed it was true - you never could leave Toxic. After all, Toxic never really left you.

"Morel."

He jumped. One wrong turn of the joystick and a flashing green 'GAME OVER' bombarded him. "Hemlock!" He turned around to face the visitor. "You couldn't have waited five minutes?"

"Five minutes become ten, ten become twenty… We know you too well, Morel," he replied with a chuckle.

Morel rolled his eyes. "Everything's going according to plan, okay? I'm on break now."

"And the matter of the second Precure?"

"Nothing to worry about. A chicken could fly better than her," he said, and turned back to fill the cabinet with change again. The higher-ups spying on him didn't phase him, and hadn't for years now. As long as he was doing his job, what was there to hide?

He knew Hemlock nodded without looking up from the screen - that's what he always did. "You could have taken them out right there, you know. Everything was in place."

"Eh," he shrugged. "I wanna mess with 'em a little more. They're fun to pick on." The look on Basil's face when he dealt that threat! It would take him a long time to get over that one.

"Hm…" He fully expected him to shoot the idea down, killjoy that he was. "You did deal quite a bit of damage today. I suppose it couldn't hurt to allow you a little more time to finish the job." Morel smirked; for once, he got his way. "But you can't draw this out for too long. Even if it's not noticeable now, Precure grows stronger by the day."

"Trust me, they're toast. I'll have them begging for mercy in no time." And with that, Hemlock vanished without a sound. _About time._ He'd have the whole night to plan for tomorrow, but right now, that unmanned joystick was calling his name.

* * *

Kayin hated quiet. Nothing to capture her attention, to stimulate, to get her imagination running. This could be fixed so easily. She just had to say something to the person next to her, anything. So why wouldn't anything come out when she opened her mouth?

They'd been talking all day. What was she afraid of now, of all times? A sentence repeated over and over again in her head.

" _You think that's the worst they can do? You don't know. I don't know…"_

Say she did ask. Straightforward, no more dodging the subject. Would she freak out like that again? How many freakouts before Malini decided she didn't want to be around her at all? It was only their first day as roommates. To mess it up this early…

But if she said nothing at all, wouldn't it look like she didn't care? _Damned if you do, damned if you don't._ Why did this have to be so convoluted? This morning her biggest concern had been getting a painting done. Over the course of a day, the whole world had changed.

Maybe she could ease into it. Small talk, right? Just start with anything other than the matter at hand. The weather? School? Malini hadn't had a single class yet. Dinner? Dinner. Dinner was safe.

"So, uh, Malini…I know the Chinese place was a bit much for you, but was the food good, at least?"

A long moment with by with no response. "Malini?" Nothing. Her gaze never drifted from the point directly in front of her as she walked. _Seriously? Not again._ She waved a hand in front of her face. "Malini!"

Malini blinked. "What's wrong, Kayin?"

"Nothing. I was just asking you how dinner was."

"Oh. It was good." Sheesh. How vague could you get? _Never mind. Don't push it._

She supposed she owed her friend an apology at the very least. "Hey…sorry if I've been making you uncomfortable. I'm used to being around people who put up with my BS, but if you need me to stop what I'm doing, just say the word."

She blushed and turned away. "I'm sorry. I should've tried to talk more."

"H-Hey, that's nothing to be sorry for! You don't have to be a big blabbermouth like me."

"But I'm supposed to be making friends." Without warning, she stopped in her tracks and paused as if she were listening to some distance sound. Kayin had to stop and backtrack. Finally, she sighed and kept going.

She raised an eyebrow. "What was that about?"

"Me and Laurier were just talking."

"Talking?" If they already had a conversation going, it must've been a quiet one.

"Well, in our heads. I just learned to do it," she admitted with a little smile. "You should be able to do it, too. With Caraway."

"Huh." At least she was at the point where she could take these strange things in stride now. Why not find out if she was right? She closed her eyes. _All right, Caraway, let's give this a try. Can you hear me?_

" _Kayin!"_ an adoring voice echoed back, a little too loudly. She covered her ears without thinking; it didn't help.

"Does it hurt?" Malini asked. "You don't have to do it if you don't want."

"Heh, yeah, a little bit." Maybe more than a little bit. But she had to get used to it at some point. _We'll try this again later,_ she told her fairy friend.

She didn't get a word back in response so much as…well, what was the physical feeling of a drawing of a heart? She was pretty sure it was that. Actually, that felt kind of nice. This psychic link or whatever had its upsides.

"What were you and Laurier talking about, anyway?" There, that was a good place to start.

She had to take a moment to think about it. "About everything. Dinner, school, Precure…"

That brought a smile to her face. Malini wasn't as lonely as she seemed after all. "Well, sounds to me like you already have a friend."

"That's true!" She smiled a little bigger. "But I'd like to have more than one. I haven't been doing a very good job at finding any."

Kayin chuckled. "Don't be silly. You found me, right?"

Her eyes widened. "Are we friends?"

"When you've fought giant monsters together, is that even a question anymore?"

The smile on her face gradually evolved into a grin. "Two friends. Not a bad start."

"Not a bad start indeed." And here she was dancing around the topic again. _Just ask her!_ "So if we're friends… Would you mind telling me what's on your mind? You seem really worried about something or other."

At that, her shoulders slumped and her smile weakened. Not a good start, but she guessed it couldn't be avoided. "Not one thing. I've been worried about a lot of things."

Now they were getting somewhere. "So why don't you start with the most important thing?"

Another pause. And then she stopped again. This time, Kayin stopped along with her. At first she wondered if she was interrupting some important conversation she and Laurier were having, but Malini spoke up again before she could wonder for too long.

"I think I might go with them."

"With who?" The events of the afternoon slowly came back to her. "Wait, no! You can't! You're just gonna let them win?"

"No. I'm not the only Precure anymore." Her voice quivered. "And you're the stronger out of us anyway."

"That's not - "

"I don't want them to take you. You don't wanna end up like me. No one would. But if I go, maybe I'd be used to it? I guess." Laurier emerged from her purse and positioned herself atop her shoulder, nuzzled against her head.

Something was wrong here. Horribly wrong. Did she even want to know? "Malini…what do you know about these people?"

Somehow, she managed to compose herself, if only for a moment. "I don't really know anything. I just know what other people have told me." She sniffled. "They said that's normal, I think. To forget things that hurt too much to remember. But every once in a while, I remember just enough. Just…pain. Hurt."

"What the hell did they do to you?" Without realizing it, she'd gripped Malini's unoccupied shoulder so tight, she could tear through the fabric of her shirt. But Malini didn't protest. "I know it hurts, but I want to know what we're up against. Tell me everything."

Her eyes drifted to the side, like her thoughts wandered off somewhere far, far away…

* * *

" _You really don't remember?"_

 _Malini and Atsuko sat across from each other in this little bedroom, Laurier sitting comfortably in her friend's lap despite the tension in the air. The bruises that dotted Malini's arms and legs ached so. But she kept reminding herself that Gladys had planned on doing a lot worse. Or maybe that was even worse to think about._

 _She shook her head. "When I try to remember anything before here, there's just…nothing there." However hard she tried to conjure something up, nothing came to her, so eventually she'd just given up. Maybe it wasn't that important?_

" _I see," Atsuko replied with a nod, looking at the floor in thought. "Maybe it's better that way. You've had such a hard time adjusting these past few months. If this is what it takes to give you a normal life, then…"_

" _Does everyone hate me?" The screaming still echoed in her ears._ Filthy, heartless Toxic scum…

" _What? No, of course not. Listen, some of us were apprehensive about it at first, but everyone here adores you."_

" _How do I know?" Tears streamed down her face like waterfalls. "How do I know they're not pretending like she was?"_

 _She sighed. "Gladys has been fired, Malini. She won't hurt you anymore. And if anyone else even thinks about it…" Her hand clenched the hilt of her sword._

" _What about you?"_

 _That made her stop. Through her tears, she could see the grip on her weapon loosen, her face drawing closer to hers, and felt a hand gently grasp her chin._

" _Malini, look at me. Come on." She tried her best to keep her eyes open. Atsuko's expression hardened. "I would sooner stab myself in the foot than do anything,_ anything _, that would ever hurt you. So help me God, you. Have. My. Word."_

 _Her heart wanted to trust her so badly. Yet some sliver of doubt still lingered. She pulled away from her hand._

 _At that, she looked genuinely hurt. "Is there anything I can do to make it better?"_

 _She wiped her tears away, though it only kept her eyes dry for a second or two. If she was going to hear this, she needed to toughen up. "Tell me why she did it. Tell me everything."_

 _Atsuko gaze faltered. "Are you sure you're ready for it?"_

 _She couldn't compose herself enough to give an answer. Just a determined look._

" _All right." Atsuko returned to her original position. "This is what happened._

" _It was the night we were infiltrating Toxic's base. We'd been planning this raid for months. Everything depended on this one mission." She hesitated. "God, there are things I saw in there that I wish I'd never seen. Substances we'd never heard of before, fed to plants. Fed to animals. All kinds of horrific mutations, things that resembled nature but were warped beyond recognition. It's a wonder some of those things were still alive._

" _Their biggest project was hidden behind layers and layers of high-tech security. None of us had any idea how to get through. But whatever was being kept in there could be enough to wipe out all of Naseyda, so we couldn't just leave it._

 _There was something we didn't know, though. We had a stowaway."_

 _She felt her friend squirm in her hands. Her eyes widened in recognition. "Laurier?"_

 _Atsuko nodded. "She was small enough to squeeze through without us even knowing she was there. What she saw there…" She looked like she was about to say something, but bit her lip at the last minute. "Needless to say, it was everything we feared and more. But Laurier saw something we didn't. She saw_ you _buried underneath all of it."_

 _Malini couldn't bring herself to say a word. She'd already feared the worst the moment talks about mutations began, but to hear it was all true… She couldn't even cry anymore. Her condition was something more like shock. It was too much to process._

 _Seeing how poorly she was handling the situation. Atsuko changed gears. "Malini, listen. We had been looking for someone Laurier could bond with for months by that point. We never thought it would happen in a place like that. But that's beside the point. She saved you, Malini. Your life. Your soul. Without Laurier, you wouldn't be here today. And if that isn't a miracle, I don't know what is."_

 _That did help her snap out of it a little. She looked down at her friend, who gave a shy smile. "Did, did you really do all that?"_

" _Not everything," Laurier said, blushing. "I just helped calm you down a little. The queen had to heal you after."_

 _Calm down? The idea that she attacked her best friend… She started to feel sick. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."_

" _Malini?" Laurier looked more confused than anything._

 _Instinctively, she clenched her eyes shut. Why? That wouldn't keep her from facing the truth. Nothing would. It didn't take long for her to start crying again. Now it wasn't much of a stretch to believe everything Gladys said about her._ Filthy. Heartless. Scum. Scum. _Scum!_

" _Malini…" she heard Atsuko say, but she couldn't listen to her anymore._

" _Malini…Malini, stop! Stop!" A flash of light. The tears suddenly dried up. Opening her eyes, Laurier looked just as stunned as she was. What just happened?_

 _Atsuko spoke up again. "Malini, can you hear me out for just a minute?"_

 _Though she felt like nothing would help, for some reason she felt compelled to hear her out. What could it hurt?_

 _Atsuko let out a shaky sigh. It was only noon and she already looked exhausted. Just another thing to guilt herself over. "Look, I don't know much about magic. These past few months have been nuts. I've never known less of what was going on in my life." Not a good start so far. But Malini stayed silent, waiting for her to continue. She drew close to her again. "But there's one thing I do know. Whatever it was that they did to you in there, that wasn't the real you. Here, right now, this is you. And if a miracle brought you here, it can't be taken away that easily."_

 _Her reasoning sounded logical enough. If it took so much effort to make her human… Or was she already? No, she couldn't have been. Not a monstrosity like that. …Then it'd take even more effort to turn her back, wouldn't it? But she just couldn't shake that fear off. Her hands trembled._

 _Laurier snuggled into both palms, hugging one wrist. "Malini, you know I'd never let anything happen to you. Right?"_

 _Malini smiled just a little. "Of course." Seeing as that assertion was coming from a little fairy, maybe she shouldn't have been so confident about it. Yet she trusted Laurier unconditionally; she had from the second they met. That was just the way things were. How they were supposed to be. From what little she knew about fairies, anyway._

 _Atsuko gave a gentle smile. "You two want some alone time?"_

" _Y-Yeah. That'd be nice." Some quiet time in general sounded beneficial. She knew she couldn't take any more surprises today._

" _Got it. Just call if you need anything, okay? You know the drill." And with that, she left the room, closing the door behind her. And Malini and Laurier were left alone to make sense of it all._

* * *

It didn't quite come out the way Malini remembered it when she told Kayin. A lot of it had to be condensed. A little spotty in places. But from the way Kayin's eyes widened, she knew she'd said enough.

"Damn," she said, her eyes darting to the ground. "Damn… These people really are messed up."

She gave a weak nod. "I don't want them to take you. So…"

"Well, I don't want them taking you, either!" she interrupted. "Why does it have to be either of us? We're a team, aren't we? We outnumber him two to one."

"Even if he's gone, there's lots of others. The younger girl's pretty scary, too. And I don't know who else, but they must be even worse." She shuddered. Despite telling herself that, it was hard to imagine things being any worse than they were now.

"So? They can't all come at us at once."

Her eyes widened. She hadn't even considered that possibility. "Oh god, what if they do?"

"Then we'll kick their butts anyway," she said, her head held high, a smirk on her face. "You said it yourself. Nothing can hurt Precure, right?"

She sighed. "I used to think that."

And silence. Not even Laurier had a thought to share. Being a Precure had seemed so exciting at first. She really did feel invincible. Why did her issues have to come back and ruin it? Wasn't everything supposed to be better now?

"Hmm." Kayin didn't look so confident now, but she still fared much better than Malini did at that moment. "If we can get seriously hurt… The more of us, the better, right? If one of us is gone, it just makes it easier for them to take the other one out."

Now that made her think. She'd assumed giving herself up would save her teammate the trouble, but would it really just make things worse? "That's a good point." Though she wasn't entirely convinced. "But maybe they'll just leave you alone."

"Are you serious? Malini, that's not how these kinds of people work." She guessed some part of her already knew that. You couldn't trust someone from Toxic. But her doubts tried to convince her otherwise.

"Then what do we do?" It felt like a ten-ton weight on her shoulders. Facing this massive organization.

Kayin shrugged. "I guess…we fight. We fight them until they stop fighting us."

That didn't sound like much of a solution. The last slivers of the sun sinking behind the buildings that lined the horizon made her feel even more hopeless.

And yet, a few stars faded into existence as the sky continued to darken. Then a few more as they distanced themselves from the busy town. When one light vanishes, another appears. There was always hope, right? That was one of the queen's pieces of wisdom that got spread around a lot. And didn't the queen know everything?

By then, she didn't even entertain the possibility of surrendering herself. But the problem still felt insurmountable. "Do you think the two of us are enough?" Two versus…how many people were even in Toxic? It could be as few as ten. Or as many as a hundred. As much as she tried to lean toward the more optimistic estimate, something told her that was way off.

Kayin let out a yawn. Maybe they'd been talking a little too long. Herself and her stupid problems… "Hey, if I found a fairy in the middle of nowhere, there's gotta be others around. It's a big world. What are the chances of there only being one?"

Pretty good, if Laurier was the only fairy that had ever been found in Naseyda. But this world seemed so much bigger than Naseyda, even just looking at her new map. "I guess you're right. But if it's so big, who knows where the others are?"

"I told ya, people from all over the world are here. Maybe we'll get lucky."

 _Maybe we'll get lucky._ So it was a matter of chance.

"Then I hope we do get lucky." Her very existence was a miracle, she reminded herself. How many miracles could happen in a lifetime? Laurier was one, Laurier finding her was one, her become a Precure was one… Three was already a lot.

"'Ey, don't worry about it," Kayin slurred, patting her on the shoulder as they approached the school. Poor girl looked like she could fall asleep any second. Why didn't she take her right back to the room to sleep after the fight? Oh, right; because she had still been in the middle of her own episode. Somehow she herself was still coherent enough that grabbed her friend's collar before she could run into the front door.

Kayin blinked. "Whoops. Hehe, my bad." At this rate, she wouldn't be able to make it to her room. Then Malini would have to remember the way. Just up the stairs and to the left, wasn't it? Or was there a second turn in there somewhere? _Oh, boy…_

She opened the door and - the door was locked. Why was the door locked?

"Malini." Laurier handed her the key.

"Oh…oh, yeah." She did have one of those, didn't she? "Let's see here." It took her longer than she'd like to fit the key into its slot, and to figure out which way the lock turned, but soon enough the door opened and they were making their way down the halls.

Down their halls and up the stairs, as Malini tried to make sense of the labyrinth that was this school - all the while keeping a tight grip on Kayin's wrist as she stumbled about, mumbling something about "Cure Lavender to the rescue" and making sound effects like a little kid.

And finally, the number plate that read 522 entered her line of sight. _Thank goodness._ She let out a yawn of her own; apparently she'd been more tired than she thought. Just a little more fumbling with this key and she could get back into bed.

The door opened. Kayin let out a little giggle and practically skipped into bed. So much for her spending the night on her artwork. But she desperately needed the rest…and so did Malini. They were both so tired that they didn't even bother to change clothes.

Maybe when she woke up, some of that magical Precure confidence would return to her. Although her stomach turned at the thought of what she would do if that _didn't happen._

"Malini."

Malini's eyes snapped open. At first she thought Laurier must've been calling her, but looking over her shoulder, she was already sound asleep. She turned the other way, to the bed beside her. "Kayin?"

Kayin's face was covered in a loopy grin. "Malini, thanks for today. I had lotsa fun."

That, she hadn't expected. This whole day had been a disaster from start to finish, but she actually had fun? "Are, are you sure?"

"Toootally. We gotta do this again sometimes," she replied, as if it had just been any other night on the town.

Maybe it was just her being half-asleep. Maybe she wouldn't feel the same in the morning. But for now, Kayin's compliments brought a smile to her face. "Thank you. I guess. U-Up until everything went south, it was a lot of fun fighting with you, too, Kayi - "

A snore interrupted her. Kayin was out like a light. She couldn't help but let out a chuckle. _Sleep as long as you want._ And the sooner she started doing the same thing, the better.

To her surprise, her nervous thoughts quieted themselves the moment she closed her eyes.

* * *

Morel groaned. Who in their right mind would make anyone get up this early? So early the sun was still hiding. And schools put a bunch of kids on this schedule? Toxic would never do something that crazy. Maybe now was the time to do some recruiting.

No, no. He'd get chewed out for not focusing again. _Stick to the plan, Morel, stick to the plan._ These people and their freaking plans. And how many of those plans had fallen through so far? Given the chance, he could come up with something better. But nobody wanted to listen to him, no, sir.

He wished he could've had a little more time to experiment. Pushing one Precure to breaking point had been easy - surely it wouldn't be much harder to do the same to the other. On the other hand, the longer he waited, the more recovery time they'd have. Better to get it over with, then. Then he would have the rest of the day to do whatever he wanted.

He looked at the smudged phone number written on the back of his hand. Earth phones still worked on a number system, apparently. What was this, the stone age? Toxic had to whip up a special phone just to deal with things like this - he promptly whipped said phone out of his pocket. Having to type in all the numbers individually was such a pain in the ass.

* * *

That morning, Kayin had gotten up earlier than usual to get to work on her paintings. So much time wasted going straight to bed last night - time that needed to be made up. That and another idea had hit in the middle of night. One that had been a bit of a pain to execute, but hopefully it would benefit everyone.

She'd been so occupied with her work that she didn't notice Malini had woken up until she practically leapt out of bed. Looked like she was still on edge, even after a good night's sleep. This was going to be harder than she thought.

"Mornin', Malini!" she said with a smile. "I went ahead and brought some breakfast up for you since I was up."

Malini only briefly glanced at the plate of pancakes she'd left in the kitchen. But her main focus was the…how to put it? Redecorating that she'd done in her spare time. "The, the room…"

"Right. So I got this book on feng shui the other day. You know, qi and stuff." Caraway found the book on her nightstand and promptly tossed it in Malini's direction - nearly hitting her roommate in the stomach. "Caraway! Watch your aim."

"Sorry," he said with a sheepish smile.

"S'all right. Be more careful. Anyway, if you were gonna get anywhere close to feeling better, the room needed fixing, stat." She noticed she'd been stroking her brush over the same spot for a solid minute now. But it didn't look half bad. Happy accidents and all that. "You like it? Personally, I can already feel my energies settling."

The only response she got was a moan and a fall back into bed. _Rude. She could've at least pretended_ _to like it._ After she went through all that trouble…

A pompous tune interrupted her train of thought, propelling her brush off the edge of the edges. "Oh, dammit." Happy accidents, happy accidents.

Malini perked up at the sound. "Atsuko." She scrambled to open her nightstand before Laurier beat her to it and pulled a gold, intricately carved tablet out of the drawer. Sheesh, that was some fancy case. She worked for the queen, all right. Queen of the world, maybe.

From the name, she expected a woman's voice when the call was picked up. That wasn't what came out.

"Heeeey, Malini! Haven't seen you since, what, yesterday?"

Kayin nearly snapped her brush in two. "You again…!" But just as she was about to stomp over there and give him a piece of her mind, Malini shushed her. She was aching to say _something_ , but…then again, it hadn't helped much last time.

"Hello, Morel," she answered into the screen. _Moral._ Some name for a guy like that

Laurier nuzzled close to her roommate. She wrapped an arm around her.

Morel continued. "So, you remember our little deal last night, don't you?" Malini only nodded. "Good, good. And I gave you plenty of time to make a decision. So?"

Again, her only answer was a nod. What did that mean? Yes? No? Morel seemed to take it as the former. His nasty grin took up the whole screen. "Perfect. I'll see you outside." And the call ended.

Kayin stammered. "Wait. Wait a minute. Don't tell me you're gonna…"

"I'll go out there first," she said, standing up with Laurier in her arms. "Do what I can."

Caraway promptly landed on top of her head, and she knew what she had to do. "Don't be silly. We're going out together, right? Two against one, remember."

"He could trick us," she replied. "He could kill you as soon as you're close enough."

"Nobody can kill me! I'm Cure Lavender, remember?" she said with a grin. Well, maybe that _was_ a risk. But it was a risk that had to be taken. "So come on. Who knows how grumpy he'll get if we keep him waiting?" Actually, that might've been funny to watch. Just to go ahead and let him throw his temper tantrum. Nah, somebody might get hurt that way. Better get on down there.

The quartet made their way down the hall and into the staircase. "So wait, do we transform before or after we get there?"

"After," Malini said.

"Oh, okay." Should they have come up with a plan? Yeah, they should've come up with a plan. Could she come up with a plan in thirty seconds? But by then, they were at the front door and there was no time.

And there was the guy's ugly mug now. Not even bothering to look at them. In fact, he looked too occupied with his phone to notice they were there. _Wait a minute. Here comes the plan._

Thinking on her feet, she quickly whispered her idea into Malini's ear, and gave her a thumbs up. Malini smirked - something she'd only ever seen her do as Basil before. _Now_ they were working as a team.

Time to get into position. Malini went to approach Morel directly, while Kayin took a more distant approach…

"Morel?" Malini mumbled, evidently still a little apprehensive. But he didn't notice. "Morel!" she repeated, louder this time.

Finally, he looked. "Oh, Malini. Took you long enough." He tossed the phone over his shoulder, hitting Kayin smack in the face. She muffled her yelps - unfortunately, not before she took Malini's attention.

Morel noticed the concerned look on her face. "What are you so worried? We aren't gonna do anything you haven't been through before," he said with a smirk. Concern changed to fear. Obviously that would just make her feel worse, and he knew it. But she had to wait for just the right moment to attack… "Well, no use in standing around here." He shrugged. "Best we get going." And he gripped Malini's wrist hard enough to bruise it. Hard enough that Laurier had to step in and try to pry him off.

 _Oops, I waited too long. Here goes nothing._

With a yell, Kayin closed her eyes and ran straight ahead as fast as she could. Her cranium collided head-on with the man's rear. _Ow!_ Why was this guy's butt so rock hard? But just like she planned, he fell face forward onto the ground, his monochrome appearance a stark contrast against the green grass. And he brought Malini down with him. Whoops.

"Malini, are you okay?" Laurier reappeared to help her friend up after keeping quiet for most of the plan.

Malini smiled as she pushed herself up. "It worked!" She scanned over Kayin's appearance from top to bottom. "But, um, weren't you supposed to transform first?"

She blinked. She _had_ transformed, hadn't she…? Oh, wait, no she hadn't. "Ah, well. Better late than never. Wait, how do I do that aga - " Before she could even finish her sentence, Caraway hopped out of her bag and handed her something that looked like a purple metal capsule. Something clicked. She had to use this. "Okay, there's gotta be a button on this somewhere, right?" she guessed, shuffling the object around in her hands.

"Over here." Malini directed her to it. Right on the bottom. "You open that and say 'Precure Full Permeation." And she took out her own

"Right right. Full permanentation or whatever." The second she pressed the button, the capsule popped open like a flowerbud, its 'petals' spreading outwards to reveal a shining silver center. In her mind, everything seemed to fall into place. She held up her flower and the words came to her naturally. "Precure Full Permeation!"

"Precure Full Permeation!" Malini followed suit.

All that magical energy came rushing back like a jetstream, and after a surreal period of time in what she could only describe as a neverending lavender-covered dreamland, her feet landed on the ground. Now she was Lavender. She didn't have to look down to tell; she just knew.

"Whew!" She stretched her arms outward towards the sun, reveling in the sensation. "Time for the fun part," she said to Basil standing across from her.

"Well played, girls, well played." _Wait, what?_ That voice sounded further away than it should've. As if he had teleported, Morel now stood a good twenty feet away, at the point where the path to the school's front door transitioned into sidewalk. "A little simplistic, but I gotta admit, it did catch me off-guard."

"Get back over here and fight, you coward!" Lavender shouted, jumping up and down and shaking a fist. Come to think of it, Basil always seemed so calm after she transformed, but it had the opposite effect on her. And lavender was supposed to be the soothing herb. Just differences in personality, maybe?

He giggled like a little schoolgirl. "Trust me, you are _not_ ready to fight me head-on. I would obliterate both of you in minutes. And where's the fun in that?" This weirdo. Was that all anyone was to him? His toys to play with? "No, I think I'll just make another Toxikon today. Now lessee here…" He glanced to and fro. "Ah, this should work."

In one turn of the wrist, he tossed what looked like a keychain into the school courtyard; the keyring slipped perfectly onto a tree branch, making a few full 360-degree rotations as it settled. As soon as it stopped moving, small tremors started beneath their feat. The little garden tree swelled unevenly, one side reaching nearly twice its former size before the other caught up. The patterns in the bark warped and twisted in the most unsettling way until it settled on something vaguely resembling a face. The roots burst out of the ground like zombie hands bursting out of their grave. _Oh god, it's even worse when you actually see it happen,_ Kayin thought to herself. And she thought a giant banana peel was as bad as it got. But she hoped the terror didn't show on her face.

Why was she hesitating? _Fight, dammit, fight!_ She jumped up and threw a punch at the Toxikon, not bothering to think about where to aim. Naturally, it backfired. "Ow, ow, ow!" She shook her hand limply. The bark acted as a shield. Good to know. "Don't hit! It'll hurt!" she shouted at her teammate down below.

"I know!" Basil yelled back.

Okay, that was established. So what now? She couldn't see even a little spot that wasn't shielded. But of course, she had the high ground. "How about you start looking for bare spots down there? I'll stay up here." Maybe it was a bad idea to shout their next moves at each other? Nah, this thing couldn't understand what they were saying. It was just a stupid monster.

Malini had the bottom of the thing taken care of. What did that leave her to do? Come to think of it, where had Morel gone off to? Ran off again. _Coward._ Pluck some leaves, maybe? She only managed to remove two before the tree swatted one of its branches at her, throttling her into a wall. A steel and glass wall… As she peeled herself off, she could hear screams of students through the shattered windows. That wasn't good. "Hehe…" She gave a nervous grin to the people eyeing her and rushed off.

Forget the top of the tree. Nothing could be done at the top of the tree. Time to join Malini at the bottom. She propelled herself downwards and skidded to a landing, eventually landing on her bum. A little rough, but at least she was in one piece. "Wow, nice and roomy down here." The Toxikon's rooty legs were so long that the space underneath was about the size of a gazebo. No danger of getting crushed under here. "So what'd I miss?"

"I-I'm trying to find something, but it won't sit still." Sure enough, it was hard to keep track of its limbs when they were constantly twitching and twisting around.

"Then do we pin 'em down again?"

"Can we? It's not flat like last time." True that, true that. If only they could just break the stupid things off.

 _Wait._ "Branches are breakable, right? Let's break his legs."

In the middle of their moment, they forgot to adjust their position in accordance with the Toxikon's, and barely missed getting crushed by one of the roots in question.

Basil hesitated. "Roots this thick, though?"

"We're Precure, aren't we? You have to have handled more weight than that before."

She blushed. "I did lift a tree once. But it was a normal-sized tree."

"See? One root isn't anywhere near as big as a normal-sized tree!" No time to waste. Lavender grabbed onto the closest root as soon as it touched down. "Come on, now do your side."

Nodding, Basil grabbed a leg at the opposite end. Step 2: Apply force. If she could bend her body in just the right way, the branch should've… _SNAP._ "Hey, that was even easier than I thought," she remarked to herself. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that her teammate had accomplished much of the same on her end.

"Hurry!" Lavender shouted, seeing that the monster was quickly approaching the school. Two legs down. To the next one. Three. Four. Five… Did something just scrape against her?

"Lavender, look out!" She had but a second to look as the limb next to her came hurtling toward her "Oh, no. Nope, nope, nope - " And then she was tossed to the ground. But not by the tree. "Basil?"

There was Cure Basil herself, just inches away from her as she lay on the ground. A little too close to comfort, given she could feel her teammate breathing on her - and they were both breathing pretty hard by now. She easily pushed herself back into a sitting position. "Wow. Hehe. Guess you saved my butt." But Basil looked to be taking a little longer to regain her bearings. "Hey, you okay? You hurt?"

"No, no." Her breaths gradually steadied, and she sat on the lawn as well. "Just…scared me, is all."

She let out a chuckle - more of an embarrassed chuckle than anything else. "I knew you told me this stuff was dangerous, but for some reason when I'm Lavender…"

"Yeah. I know." She sighed. "I-It's good that you're the more confident one. I'm still a nervous wreck, magic or not."

"Hey, nerves have their perks! I run into everything headfirst, and look where it got us." The tree continued to make its way to the school building as they spoke, although it struggled a little more with half its roots gone. "Ehh, speaking of which, we oughta wrap this up."

Basil stood up. "It has slowed down a lot. Could we attack it?" But it was still fast enough that she had trouble aiming.

"What happens if we both attack it at the same time?"

She rested a hand on her chin. "That might be overkill. And it would wipe us both out. One of us has to be in decent shape after the fight."

"Or, if we're splitting the effort, then we're both in better shape for it." Lavender shrugged. "Besides, better overkill than underkill, right?" Either way, there wasn't time to mull over every possibility. She held out her arms. "Come on, what's the worst that could happen?"

"Hm…" Finally, she relented and followed her lead. "I guess you're right. But what happens if it hits the school?"

"Knowing how this attack works, they'll be really chill for the rest of the day." By now the Toxikon was close enough to the windows that it could hit at any moment. "Okay, no more talking! On the count of three?"

Basil nodded. "One…two…" Their hands glowed simultaneously. "Three! Precure Leafy Essence!"

"Precure Floral Aroma!"

In an instant, the sky was filled, covering every flat surface in glowing green and violet. It surprised her how well their distinctive scents blended together. And combined, the fragrance was twice as potent - but in a good way, not in a lady-with-too-much-perfume kind of way.

The Toxikon let out a relieved sigh, and even appeared to smile before it shrank down to its original form…and fell onto its side. Were they going to have to replace that tree? Lavender thought as the remnants of their special attacks faded into nothing. The last thing she needed was another expense to worry about. That and the broken windows. How was she going to explain all of this to her parents?

That was her biggest concern, before she noticed Basil's eyes fixated on something above her. "Hey, Basil, whatcha lookin' a - " She followed her line of sight, and met the eyes of hundreds of wide-eyed students through the school windows. "Oh."

Basil took a few shaky steps back. "They're all looking. E-Everybody saw us!" she stuttered in an increasingly more nervous tone.

She couldn't say her teammate was overreacting in this case. The entire student body had seen their faces. Or at least half of it. "Well, what are we doing just standing here?! Let's get out of here!"

She didn't have to say so twice. Basil dashed out of there before she could even finish her sentence, freaking out all the way. But just as Lavender was about to do the same, she spotted the fairies out of the corners of her vision. "Hey, where have you two been?"

"Hiding," Caraway answered nonchalantly. Smart pair. Smarter than Precure, considering the way things were going.

From the looks of it, Laurier was directing her fairy to the fallen tree. "Here, you lift the top, and I'll lift the bottom, okay?" There was no way they were gonna get far with something around five times their collective height, even if it was a pretty small tree.

"Hey, hey. If you're gonna do that, let me help you." Lifting the tree from its center and hoisting it over her shoulder proved to take minimal effort. Super strength sure was nice. And just as she thought, she didn't feel anywhere near as tired as the last fight. "Now where did Basil run off to?"

"This way," Laurier replied, leading the way. And it just so happened that she had made her way back toward the courtyard…crouched down beneath a picnic table. _Does that really hide anything?_ "Basil!" The fairy flew to her partner.

Basil's head poked out from underneath her hiding place. "Laurier!" Her eyes darted to the tree. "Oh, yeah! I almost forgot." After that, she didn't hesitate at all to crawl back out into the open. Together, they found the place where the tree originally stood, then Basil held it upwards in its original hole.

Was replanting it even possible? "Hey, that's nice and all, but all the dirt's scattered everywhere," she noticed, lightly kicking at the faint tracks of soil surrounding her feet. "You're not gonna be able to fill that hole back up."

That was when she felt the wind pick up. Something in the back of her mind started buzzing. Like a sixth sense. "Caraway?" Her first instinct was to look for her own fairy. "Caraway, where are - "

And there he was, bathed in white light just like when she'd first transformed. Her eyes widened. She wanted to say something, but for once, she couldn't think of anything. She could only watch as the dirt she stood on was blown upwards by the sudden strong gale, which let up just as it all reached the flowerbed, letting the soil fall back into place.

"Uh…" Even now, there were still new surprises. "Whoa. You can do that?" Suddenly, she noticed something she hadn't before as she took him into her arms. "Hey…when did your flower bloom?" It wasn't quite a _full_ bloom, but it was enough that it didn't have to be pried open to see the inside.

Caraway smiled, his cheeks turning a bright pink. "Just helping." But he only kept his eyes open long enough to watch Laurier do something similar once the dirt was in place - although from what Lavender could tell, it was just helping the tree stand up straight.

"There." Basil smiled and let go of the trunk, reverting to her normal self. "That…actually wasn't so bad! Apart from everyone looking at us."

As she let herself change back, Kayin couldn't deny she felt uneasy about it too. "Ehehe. We'll deal with that as it comes. The important thing is that none of 'em got hurt." One step at a time. She'd always had trouble trying to think very far into the future.

"I guess so," she said with a sigh. "But I'm gonna get in big trouble if all these secrets get out."

"You know, they never said why this all had to be a secret," Laurier pointed out, sitting on her head.

"So Toxic wouldn't find out, maybe? But they already figured it out." She winced. "I really did mess up."

They started to make their way back indoors; Kayin decided to take them through the back door to avoid drawing any further attention. "Well, you ever read like, superhero comics and stuff?" Not that Kayin did, but the more popular ones had permeated pop culture to the extent that she knew the basics. "Usually these heroes have a secret identity to like, keep the villains from getting to their family and friends and stuff."

Malini paused to think about it for a moment. "There were some comics in the castle library, but I don't know any characters like that." She bit her lip. "At least I don't have a family. But that means making friends is kinda dangerous."

"As long as you don't tell anybody, it's fine, right? I mean, you told me already, but that's different." Personally, living several thousand miles away from her family at the moment made that particular part easy. On the other hand, she was something of a social butterfly here at school, and she didn't plan on going and becoming a hermit just because she was fighting monsters on the side now. "Who knows? Maybe nobody recognized us?"

She whined. Okay, maybe that wasn't the best reassurance.

Time for a more optimistic approach. "But hey, if we got out of this mess together, we can get out of any mess, right?"

It took a while, but she did smile. "Yeah. Two is better than one." A gurgling from her stomach interrupted her. Laurier giggled. "Ah…I never got the chance to eat breakfast."

"Better late than never. Your pancakes are still waiting." Now that she mentioned it, she'd burned off the majority of her breakfast in that battle. That and getting up so early. "Uh, I'll catch up with you. I'm gonna grab something from the vending machine."

"Sure." As they separated at the fork in the hallway, Kayin couldn't help but glance down at Caraway sleeping in her arms.

"You know," she said to herself, "I thought having a weird pet was cool, but it doesn't begin to compare to all of this. So…thanks, Caraway." This was beyond the wildest dreams of what she'd hoped to find at a boarding school.


End file.
